Radium is a rare metal recently discovered, having remarkable qualities and very difficult to obtain. It is a constituent of pitchblende, which is found in many places, but only in a small way. So far all that has been procured has come from a mine in Cornwall. A ton of pitchblende carries about 15½ grains of radium and it is very difficult to extract. A grain is estimated to be worth $200,000 and a kilogram is worth about $2,000,000. There is only about one pound of radium in the world. It is estimated to be worth $1,000,000.
Radium was discovered by M. and Mme. Curie, in France, after they had familiarized themselves with the remarkable properties of uranium and polonium. Radium has many curious and inexplicable qualities. It continually emits heat and light without combustion, without chemical changes of any kind, and without any change in its bulk, appearance or molecular structure, which remains identical after many months.
It is so powerful in the energy it constantly hurls forth as to entail many dangers in handling it. Sir Wm. Crookes says in describing it: "Probably if half a kilogram were in a bottle on that table it would kill us all. It would most certainly destroy our sight and burn our skins to such an extent we could not survive. The smallest bit placed on one's arm would produce a blister it would take months to heal." It also emits electrons with a velocity so great that Prof. Crookes estimates "one gram is enough to lift the whole of the British navy to the top of Ben Nevis, and I am not quite certain that we could not throw in the French fleet as well."
It has such surprising properties that Lord Kelvin was moved to say of it that, "it threatens to overthrow the correlation of forces," which is the rock-ribbed, foundation postulate of science. It seems already to have unsettled the accepted theory of light, and after the experiments of the Russian scientists who are now investigating it, Profs. Mendelief, Yigooff and Borgruan, the result may give us new scientific theories and a new nomenclature.
Radium tends to confirm my electric theory of creation, it also seems to aid the Thomson corpuscles hypothesis, and will open the way to new and important discoveries.
My opinion from very brief thought on the subject is that radium is in its nature a form of electric energy solidified, and may be a bundle of Thomson corpuscles or electrons combined and solidified by some process not yet understood. It is in the nature of an electric dynamo, and draws its constant supply of electricity from the air. It is plain that it is an electric substance and manifestation, for, as Prof. Crookes says, "it emits electrons with a velocity so great one gram would lift the British navy to the top of a mountain, and he is even willing to throw in the French fleet." If he were not a great scientist, I should say he was exaggerating like an amateur. Radium is at present a great scientific puzzle. It seems to destroy the present theory of light and the conservation of energy and the so-called attraction of gravitation by reason of its marvelous energy and wonderful qualities.
But I stand with the scientists on the doctrine of the conservation of energy and the correlation of forces, and do not believe radium seriously threatens it, though Lord Kelvin had much reason to say so; and it is a puzzle yet unsolved as to how it maintains its energy without diminution of its force and bulk. I see but one explanation, and that is, that it renews itself constantly by drawing electric energy from the air, as a battery or dynamo draws it, and thus retains its marvelous power unimpaired.
I hold that energy, like matter, is a substance and can neither be created nor destroyed. It is impossible to create a molecule out of nothing or to reduce a single particle of energy to nothing. Energy, like matter, can be changed from one form to another or from one place to another, but all matter is one matter in its elemental form, and all energy is from one original energy, which I hold to be electricity. All matter is the aggregate manifestations of the invisible atom, and all energy is the varied manifestations of the one ultimate and only force in nature—electricity.
The transformation of energy, such as falling water, expanding steam, heat, light, vital force, and so-called gravitation, are all from the same electric elemental force, and this energy is without increase or decrease and is known as the conservation of energy. The definition given of electricity by Atkins in his work on electricity, which says, "it is a molecular mode of motion," is an absurdity, for motion is an effect produced by a cause, and all motion is caused by electric energy. And the mode of motion is simply the manner in which the law of electro-magnetism operates. Thus there may be an electric law yet undiscovered by which a substance like radium may draw electric energy from the air and keep its force and bulk unimpaired for many months, or perpetually.
But radium raises many other questions affecting the nature of light and heat, such as how such great heat and light can be condensed into so small a compass and evolved with such wonderful power.