UNSUSPECTED EADIATIONS. 385 



Many problems relative to the structure and life of matter have thus 

 been raised by these researches. Various hypotheses are offered to 

 explain them, and J. J. Thompson's hypothesis— a further develop- 

 ment of his kathode-rays hypothesis— appears, after all, the most 

 probable. The molecules of which all bodies are composed are not 

 something- rigid. They live; that is, an atom or a " corpuscle " is 

 continually being detached from this or that molecule, and it wanders 

 through the gas, the liquid, or even through the solid;^ another atom 

 (or corpuscle) ma}^ next take its place in the broken molecule; and so 

 a continual exchange of matter takes place within the gaseous, liquid, 

 or solid ])odies, the wandering "corpuscles " always carrying with them 

 the sort of motion which we call an electrical charge. Those atoms or 

 corpuscles which escape from the surface of the body would give what 

 we call now Becquerel rays, and it would not be a simple coincidence 

 that those two elements which possess the greatest atomic weights, and 

 consequenth^ have the most complex molecules,'^ possess also the highest 

 radio-activity. We know that in solutions the so-called unstable com- 

 pounds play an immense part; they are continually broken up, losing 

 part of their atoms, and are continualh^ reconstituted as the}^ take in 

 new atoms. And we know that in living matter the most compound 

 molecules — those of albumen — are those which are split up most easily, 

 and that what we call life consists in a continual splitting up and 

 rebuilding of these molecules. Are not the Becquerel radiations 

 revealing to us that continual splitting and rebuilding of molecules 

 which constitutes the life of both inorganic and organic matter? 

 These are the grave questions which natural philosophers are brought 

 to ask themselves, and which will certainly require many more patient 

 researches. 



1 Compare with Roberts- Austen's researches on the permeation of solid metals, 

 mentioned in a previous " Recent Science " article. 



'Thorium, 232.6; uranium, 239.6. Both belong to the twelfth and last series of 

 Mendeleeff. The atomic weight of radium must be greater than 174. (Comptes 

 Rendus, CXXXI, p. 382. ) 



