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its own weight of ice; and it does this day after day, year after year, and 
it will continue to liberate energy until the last trace of the radium has 
disappeared, a process that we have every reason to believe will require 
ages of time. 
Many other substances beside radium are known to be radioactive. 
All substances may be more or less radioactive, the difference being one 
of degree rather than of kind. However this may be, we now know that 
there is stored within the atoms of matter quantities of energy, intra- 
atomic energy, beyond the powers of man to estimate. This is the rift in 
the clouds. It was produced by the discoveries of Becquerel and the 
Curies. 
The rift in the clouds is not quite as wide as it was a few years ago, 
for so far man has failed absolutely to influence these radioactive processes 
in the slightest degree. Whether at the temperature of liquid air or the 
electric furnace, in boiling acids or alkalies, whether in a yacuum or at 
a pressure of a thousand atmospheres, whether inside or outside the 
strongest electric and magnetic fields man can produce, the rate of dis- 
integration and consequently the rate of liberation of energy appears to 
be absolutely constant. Perhaps we may not hope to be able to control a 
change in the atoms themselves, for have not the atoms existed through 
countless ages and successfully withstood pressures and temperatures in 
Nature’s laboratory exceeding any that man can bring to his service in 
the chemistry or physics laboratory? 
That this intra-atomic energy exists is not theory. It is a fact that 
is as well established as any fact in science. Man hopes some day, some- 
how, somewhere, to unlock this infinite storehouse of energy. Today 
Nature stubbornly holds the key. The probability of man being able to 
wrest it from her is anything but bright. But we should not be, we must 
not be, discouraged, for it is our only hope. If the secret is ever dis- 
covered and we succeed in tapping this supply of energy no mind can 
imagine the hights to which civilization will mount by leaps and bounds. 
If the secret eludes us civilization is doomed to return to a primitive state 
from which it can never emerge. 
Perhaps you urge that our estimate of the life of the coal beds is 
too short. If it were in error by one hundred per cent., and no authority 
claims as much, the depletion of our coal supply is simply moved forward 
a few generations. The ultimate outcome is unchanged. 
Perhaps you say that the writer has failed to consider the possibility 
