40 THOUGHTS ON NATURAL PHILOSOPHY. 



taking and ingenious researches, they were rewarded 

 by being able to devise and publish an explanation 

 showing that Radium, like other substances, con- 

 firmed the great theories of the conservation of 

 energy and the persistence of matter. 



t The explanation was that some of the atoms of 

 Radium were constantly disintegrating into smaller 

 portions of matter, and that the energy continually 

 developed by the Radium is due to the liberation of 

 the energy contained in the atom in the form of 

 interatomic vibration of the corpuscles of which the 

 atoms consist. 



This explanation appeared at first to some to be 

 revolutionary, because it had been held and taught 

 by great authorities that the atom was the ultimately 

 minute and inseparable portion of matter. Never- 

 theless, it has been thought that a readjustment was 

 necessary, which conceived the atoms to be separable 

 into minute, and still further separable into minuter, 

 parts ; and that the elements (less than one hundred 

 in number) resolved for us by the chemists must be 

 conceived as complex products derived from fewer 

 and simpler radicals, possibly only one. The explan- 

 ation of Professors Rutherford and Soddy, which is 

 growing in acceptance, confirms this idea. Sir 

 William Ramsay's work in connection with this 

 subject is well known. 



Radium, then, consists of atoms of matter ; these 

 atoms are built up of corpuscles, and these corpuscles 

 possibly of minute granules of matter moving and 

 revolving at a tremendous speed ; and some of the 



tDr. W. Hampson's "Radium explained." 



