The Becquerel rays and the properties of radium / by R.J. Strutt.

  • Rayleigh, Robert John Strutt, Baron, 1875-1947.
Date:
1906
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Becquerel rays and the properties of radium / by R.J. Strutt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    The presence of helium, it cannot be doubted, is connected with the presence of radium.^ It is not necessary, however, to assume that any special abun- dance of radio-active material lies at the root of the spring. It may well have derived its supplies from the small amount contained in ordinary rocks. Water at a high temperature and under great pressure may be supposed to be able to dissolve out radium with other constituents. When the water cools, on coming to the surface, it is no longer so well able to hold radium in solution, so that a precipitate, comparatively rich in radium, is thrown down. The bulk of the other constituents is still retained in solution. The action of thermal springs is thus to concentrate radium contained in the rocks below. Many samples of ordinary well waters which have percolated through the soil are found to contain radium emanation in solution. The emanation is fairly soluble in water, considerably more so than oxygen or nitrogen, though less than carbonic acid. Thus the dissolved gases boiled out from the water are often quite markedly radio-active. The emana- tion has been no doubt dissolved by the water in percolating through strata which contain traces of radium. The first case of this was noted by Professor J. J. Thomson, who found that the Cambridge tap-water would yield, on boiling, a gas containing the emana- tion. When once the emanation has been boiled out, no more, or at all events very little, can be got on a subsequent occasion. Thus the radium salt from which the emanation was derived is not present in the water. contains some six per cent, of neon. This points to a far larger propor- tion of neon in the Bath gas than in the atmosphere. ^ See below, Chap, VII.