lO Wilde, Resolution of Elementary Substances. 



possesses the property of maintaining constantly a 

 temperature higher than that of its surroundings, and of 

 continuously and spontaneously emitting heat sufficient to 

 melt its own weight of ice per hour. 



Reduced to its mechanical equivalent, the amount of 

 heat continuously evolved from lib. of radium salt would 

 be = 48-94 foot-tons per hour (142° F. x 772 J. = 109624 

 lbs. = 48-94 foot-tons). 



Comparing this result with the energy created by the 

 explosion of 4-5 lbs. of gunpowder we have 4-5 x 48-94= 

 220 foot-tons of energy evolved from 4-5 lbs. of radium 

 per hour or 2200 foot-tons in 10 hours, the equivalent of 

 the energy created by the explosion of 4-5 lbs. of gun- 

 powder. But the same amount of energy has been 

 spontaneously evolved from radium for thousands of 

 years past and continues to increase the sum total of 

 all the motions in the universe, notwithstanding the 

 Cartesian dogma of the conservation of motion to the 

 contrary.^ 



Although radium is the first self-evident instance of 

 an inorganic substance having the power of spontaneous 

 molecular motion, without those antecedents and con- 

 comitants which induce in the mind the idea of causation, 

 the emanations from other elements of high atomic 

 weight indicate that similar manifestations of spontaneous 

 motion, but of lower amount, could be obtained from 

 these elements. 



Notwithstanding that the power of spontaneous 

 (endothermic) motion which radium possesses is so 

 demonstrably evident, the idea has been put forward that 

 the energy so manifested is derived in some way unknown 

 from sources external (exothermic) to itself We have in 

 this idea another significant instance of the survival of one 



^Principia Philosophm^ Pars 2, §xxxvi., 1643. 



