HYPOTHESIS OF RADIANT MATTER 77 



than was really the case? (2) It is practically assumed 

 throughout that ionization is directly proportioned to the 

 amount of radio-active material present: but this remains to 

 be proved. Where layers of any density are involved, we 

 know that it is not true, owing to internal absorption, etc.; 

 for ideally thin layers, weighing and other measurement are 

 out of the question. 



I do not think that this latter objection ought to be dis- 

 missed lightly, when we find such a phenomenon as the al- 

 most universal ionization of the atmosphere ascribed to the 

 presence of radium or its educts. Thomson himself has shown 

 a variety of ways for ionizing air, when any variation in the 

 amount of radium present or, rather, absent is out of 

 the question; some of these serve particularly well to explain 

 the phenomena in the open air. Recently, indeed, quite a 

 number of investigators have observed diurnal variations in 

 this atmospheric ionization, sufficiently marked to require 

 some other explanation than the production of emanations 

 from the earth or surrounding materials. Gustave Le Bon, 

 in his "Evolution de la Matiere," shows how the gold-leaf 

 electroscope is discharged when connected with some very 

 dry sulphate of quinine, which is taking up hygroscopic 

 moisture. Are we ready, with him, to assume that the quinine 

 is catalyzing some atoms into Nirvana, or that the electro- 

 scope may indicate many changes that are not intra-atomic? 



