PRIZES FOR THE INVENTOR 



137 



rewritten and our ideas of the constitu- 

 tion of matter entirely changed. Here is 

 a substance which emits light and heal 

 and electricity continuously without any 

 apparent source of supply. It emits light 

 in the dark, and in a cool room maintains 

 itself constantly at a higher temperature 

 than its environment. 



It emits the Roentgen rays without any 

 electrical machinery to produce them, and 

 we have now discovered emanating from 

 that substance several different kinds of 

 rays of the unknown or X-ray variety ; 

 and we now recognize the Alpha, Beta, 

 and Gamma rays as distinct varieties, 

 having different properties. 



Though radium behaves like an ele- 

 mentary substance, it is found in process 

 of time to disintegrate into other elemen- 

 tary substances quite different from the 

 original radium itself. Helium is one of 

 its products, and, after several transmu- 

 tations, it apparently turns into lead ! 



Our forefathers believed firmly in the 

 transmutation of metals, one into the 

 other, and vainly sought a means of 

 transmuting the baser metals into gold. 

 Radium shows that there is some foun- 

 dation for the transmutation theory, and 

 that at least some of the so-called ele- 

 ments originate by a process of evolution 

 from other elements quite distinct from 

 themselves. Where this line of develop- 

 ment is going to lead is a problem indeed, 

 and radium still remains the great puzzle 

 of the twentieth century. 



DYING 01' THIRST IX A FOG 



I cannot hope to bring to your atten- 

 tion all of the problems that are awaiting 

 solution, but I think it may be interesting 

 to you to hear of a few upon which I 

 myself have been working. What inter- 

 ests me will probably interest you, and 

 perhaps some of you may carry out the 

 experiments to a further point than I 

 have done. 



You know that although I am a lover 

 of Washington, yet, when the summer- 

 time comes, I go just as far away from 

 Washington as I can in the direction of 

 the North Pole. I have a summer place 

 in Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, 

 where I can always be sure of cool, fresh 



breezes, while you poor people are broil- 

 ing here in Washington. 



A good many of the people on Cape 

 Breton Island are fishermen, who make 

 their living on the Banks of Newfound- 

 land ; and one of the men employed upon 

 my place had two uncles who were fisher- 

 men on the Banks. One day they left 

 their vessel in a dory to look after their 

 nets, and while they were gone a fog 

 came up and they were unable to find 

 their way back. The dory drifted about 

 in the ocean for many days and was then 

 picked up with their dead bodies on 

 board ; they had perished from exposure 

 and thirst. 



Now it is not a very unusual thing on 

 the Banks of Newfoundland for fisher- 

 men to be separated from their vessels by 

 fog. Every year dories are picked up at 

 sea, and the occupants are often found 

 to be suffering terribly from thirst. They 

 have found "water, water, everywhere, 

 but not a drop to drink." Now, it seemed 

 to me that it was really a reflection upon 

 the intelligence of man that people should 

 die of thirst in the midst of water. 



There is the salt water of the sea, and 

 all you have to do is to separate the salt 

 from the water and drink the water. 

 That is one problem. 



CONDENSING THE; WATER VAPOR IN TH£ 

 HUMAN BREATH 



But there is also the fog which pre- 

 vents you from reaching your vessel, and 

 what is fog but fresh water in the form 

 of cloud. Therefore all you have to do 

 is to condense the fog and drink it. That 

 is another problem. 



But there is still another alternative. 

 Water vapor exists in your breath. Why 

 not condense your breath and drink it? 

 This problem is easily solved ; just 

 breathe into an empty tumbler and at 

 once you have a condensation of moisture 

 on the inside. If you have the patience 

 to continue the process for a few min- 

 utes, you will soon find clear water at the 

 bottom of the tumbler. 



I took a bucket of cool salt water from 

 the sea, put it down in the bottom of a 

 boat between my knees, and then put into 

 it a large empty bottle the size of a beer 

 bottle, which floated in the water with 



