The Nature of the Emanations from Radium. 221 
than its neutralising quantum of electrions cannot go far 
through a solid or liquid without acquiring the neutralising 
quantum : 
The 8 rays are merely electrions ; and their absorption 
may be regarded as real. Atoms of resinous electricity shot 
from radium cannot be expected to enter a screen of metal or 
glass or wood or liquid, and leave at the other side irrespec- 
tively of the insulation of the screen and of the radium. The 
full consideration and experimental investigation of the 
emission of atoms of resinous electricity from radium herme- 
tically sealed in a glass bulb or tube is forced upon us. It 
has, I believe, led to surprising and interesting results. As 
to the y rays, there is no difficulty in supposing that non- 
electrified vapour of radium passes very freely through glass 
or metals without any electric disturbance. 1t has been pub- 
lished, on authority so far as I know unquestioned, that loss 
of weight in the course of a few months has been proved. 
Full information on all that is known on this subject will no 
doubt be brought forward in the course of the discussion to 
be opened by Professor Rutherford. I regret much that I 
am not able to be present, and I shall look forward with 
eagerness to the earliest published reports of the discussion. 
Returning to Becquerel’s original discovery in respect to 
uranium and salts of uranium, the electric conductivity in- 
duced in air and other gases by a radio-active substance ; we 
havea ready explanation in my atomic resuscitation of the old 
doctrine of Aepinus. The ordinary thermal motions within 
any solid, or liquid, or gas, must cause occasionai shootings 
out of the electrions from the substance ; and the motions of 
these electrions under the influence of electrostatic force 
must contribute to the electric conductivity of the gas ; must, 
in fact, constitute all of it which is not due to transport of 
atoms of the gas carrying less than the neutralising quantum 
of electrions. Thus every substance, solid, liquid, or gas, 
must possess radio-activity. It is exceedingly interesting to 
find in Strutt’s short paper “ On Radio-activity of Ordinary 
Materials” *, that the electric conductivity of dry air con- 
tained in a cy linder of solid material differs largely for dif- 
ferent materials (1°3 for glass coated with phosphoric acid, 
1-4 aluminium, 2 to 3°3 various ordinary metals, 3°9 platinum). 
It is also exceedingly interesting to be told that radium is 
300,000,000 times more active than the most active common 
material with which he experimented. How are we to explain 
this enormous radio-activity of radium? I venture to suggest 
that it may be because it is exceedingly poly-electrionic ; that 
the saturating quantum of electrions in an atom of radium 
* Phil. Mac. June 1903 
