416 SGientiJic Intelligence. 



appointed to have charge of tlie next congress, whicli tliore is 

 reason for believing may be hehl within the next year or two. 

 The committee a])i>ointed to have cliarge of the standards con- 

 sisted of Mme. Curie and M. Debierne for France, Professors 

 Rutherford and Soddy for Great Uritain, Professor (ieitel and 

 Dr. llahn for German}'', Professors St. Meyer and von Schweid- 

 ler for Austria, Professor Boltwood for the United States and 

 Professor Eve for Canada. 



The Standards committee reported at the last meeting of the 

 Congress, and its recommendations were adopted. They were 

 substantially as follows : 



1. Mme. Curie has kindly agreed for the purposes of the 

 standard to prepare a quantity of the purest obtainable anhydrous 

 radium chloride containing about 20 milligrams of radium 

 (element). , 



2. When the committee have reimbursed Mme. Curie for the 

 cost of the Radium Standard, this will come under the control 

 of the committee and will be used only for the measurement 

 and comparison of secondary standards by means of the y-rays. 

 The original standard is to be suitably preserved and deposited 

 in Paris. 



3. Through the committee, and at their discretion, national 

 scientific laboratories and bureaus of standards willing to pay 

 the costs are to be provided with certified secondary standards. 



4. By such methods as, after due consideration, meet with the 

 approval of the committee, smaller subsidiary standards are to 

 be prepared for distribution. 



5. As radium emanation is now so generally used in scientific 

 investigations, the committee consider the adoption of a unit for 

 the measurement of the amounts of radium emanation desirable. 

 The committee i^ecommend that the name " Curie " be given to 

 the quantity or mass of emanation in equilibrium with one gram 

 of radium (element). The milli-curie would thus be the amount 

 of emanation in equilibrium with one milligram of radium. 



6. The question of proposing special names for units of meas- 

 urement of minute quantities of radium and its emanation is 

 under consideration, but no definite conclusions have as yet been 

 reached. 



7. As some members of the committee are not pi-esent at the 

 Brussels Congress, and as it has not been possible to obtain 

 imformation as to their views on these questions, the recommen- 

 dations here made are not necessarily final. The committee 

 reserves the power to modify them if on further consideration 

 this appears to be desirable. 



The preparation of a standard of pure radium salt is now 

 assured. The advantages of having such a standard with which 

 material used for various scientific investigations in different 

 parts of the world can be compared is apparent, and it will also 

 be extremely useful to have a definite standard, on the basis 

 of which quantities of i-adium salts to be sold or purchased can 



