The fluorescence produced by radium may be observed when the fluorescent screen is separated from the radium by absorbent screens. We were able to observe the illumination of a screen of barium platinocyanide across the human body. However, the action is incomparably greater when the screen is placed immediately in contact with the radium, being separated from it by no solid screen at all. All the groups of rays appear capable of producing fluorescence.
In order to observe the action of polonium, the substance must be placed close to the fluorescent screen, without the intervention of a solid screen, unless the latter be extremely thin.
The luminosity of fluorescent substances exposed to the action of radio-active bodies diminishes with time. At the same time the fluorescent substance undergoes a transformation. The following are examples:—
Radium rays transform barium platinocyanide into a brown, less luminous variety (an action similar to that produced by Röntgen rays, and described by M. Villard). Uranium sulphate and potassium sulphate are similarly altered. The changed barium platinocyanide is partially regenerated by the action of light. If the radium be placed beneath a layer of barium platinocyanide spread on paper, the platinocyanide becomes luminous; if the system be kept in the dark, the platinocyanide becomes changed, and its luminosity diminishes considerably. But if the whole be exposed to light, the platinocyanide is partially regenerated, and if the whole is replaced in darkness the luminosity reappears with vigour. By means of a fluorescent body and a radio-active body, we have therefore obtained a system which acts as a phosphorescent body capable of long duration of phosphorescence.
Glass made fluorescent by the action of radium becomes coloured brown or violet. At the same time its fluorescence diminishes. If the glass thus changed be warmed, it is decolorised, and when this occurs the glass becomes luminous. The glass has now regained its fluorescent property in the same degree as before the transformation.
Zinc sulphide, which has been exposed for a sufficient length of time to the action of radium, gradually becomes used up, and loses its phosphorescent property, whether under the action of radium or that of light.
The diamond becomes phosphorescent under the action of radium, and may thus be distinguished from paste imitations, which have only a very faint luminosity.
All the barium-radium compounds are spontaneously luminous. The dry anhydrous halogen salts emit a particularly intense light. This illumination cannot be seen in broad daylight, but it is easily visible in the twilight or by gas-light. The light emitted may be strong enough to read by in the dark. The light emitted emanates from the entire body of the product, whilst in the case of a common phosphorescent body, the light emanates specially from the portion of the surface illuminated. Radium products lose much of their luminosity in damp air, but they regain it on drying (Giesel). There is apparently conservation of luminosity. After many years no sensible modification is produced in the luminosity of feebly active products, kept in the dark in sealed tubes. In the case of very active and very luminous radium-barium chloride, the light changes colour after several months; it becomes more violet and loses in intensity; at the same time the product undergoes transformations; on re-dissolving the salt in water and drying it afresh, the original luminosity is restored.
Solutions of barium-radium salts, which contain a large proportion of radium, are equally luminous; this fact may be observed by placing the solution in a platinum capsule, which not being itself luminous permits of the faint luminosity of the solution being seen.
When a solution of a barium-radium salt contains crystals deposited in it, these crystals are luminous at the bottom of the solution, and much more so than the solution itself, so that they alone appear luminous.