[Footnote 35:  It has now been shown that polonium when freshly separated emits beta rays also; see Dr Logeman’s paper in Proceedings of the Royal Society, A., 6th September 1906.—­ED.]

M. and Madame Curie discovered as early as 1899 that every substance placed in the neighbourhood of radium, itself acquired a radioactivity which persisted for several hours after the removal of the radium.  This induced radioactivity seems to be carried to other bodies by the intermediary of a gas.  It goes round obstacles, but there must exist between the radium and the substance a free and continuous space for the activation to take place; it cannot, for instance, do so through a wall of glass.

In the case of compounds of thorium Professor Rutherford discovered a similar phenomenon; since then, various physicists, Professor Soddy, Miss Brooks, Miss Gates, M. Danne, and others, have studied the properties of these emanations.

The substance emanated can neither be weighed nor can its elastic force be ascertained; but its transformations may be followed, as it is luminous, and it is even more certainly characterised by its essential property, i.e. its radioactivity.  We also see that it can be decanted like a gas, that it will divide itself between two tubes of different capacity in obedience to the law of Mariotte, and will condense in a refrigerated tube in accordance with the principle of Watt, while it even complies with the law of Gay-Lussac.

The activity of the emanation vanishes quickly, and at the end of four days it has diminished by one-half.  If a salt of radium is heated, the emanation becomes more abundant, and the residue, which, however, does not sensibly diminish in weight, will have lost all its radioactivity, and will only recover it by degrees.  Professor Rutherford, notwithstanding many different attempts, has been unable to make this emanation enter into any chemical reaction.  If it be a gaseous body, it must form part of the argon group, and, like its other members, be perfectly inert.

By studying the spectrum of the gas disengaged by a solution of salt of radium, Sir William Ramsay and Professor Soddy remarked that when the gas is radioactive there are first obtained rays of gases belonging to the argon family, then by degrees, as the activity disappears, the spectrum slowly changes, and finally presents the characteristic aspect of helium.

We know that the existence of this gas was first discovered by spectrum analysis in the sun.  Later its presence was noted in our atmosphere, and in a few minerals which happen to be the very ones from which radium has been obtained.  It might therefore have been the case that it pre-existed in the gases extracted from radium; but a remarkable experiment by M. Curie and Sir James Dewar seems to show convincingly that this cannot be so.  The spectrum of helium never appears at first in the gas proceeding from pure bromide of radium; but it shows itself, on the other hand, very distinctly, after the radioactive transformations undergone by the salt.