be no reasonable doubt that these substances both contain the same active substance, which is the seventh transformation product of radium. Marckwald has noticed some chemical differences in the behaviour of polonium and radio-tellurium, but little weight can be attached to such observations, for it must be remembered that the active constituent in both cases is present in minute quantity in the material under examination, and that the apparent chemical properties of the active substance are much influenced by the presence of impurities. The most important and trustworthy test rests upon the identity of the radiations and the period of decay.
241 A. Origin of radio-active lead. Some experiments
will now be discussed which show that the radio-lead first separated
from pitchblende by Hofmann (section 22) contains the products
radium D, E and F. Hofmann has observed that the activity of this
substance did not appreciably decay in the course of several years.
In some recent experiments, Hofmann, Gonder and Wölfl[1] have
made a close chemical examination of the radio-active lead, and have
shown the presence of two radio-active constituents, which are
probably identical with the products radium E and F. The radio-active
measurements were unfortunately not very precise, and the
periods of change of the separated products have not been examined
very closely.
Experiments were made on the effect of adding substances to a solution of radio-lead, and then removing them by precipitation. Small quantities of iridium, rhodium, palladium, and platinum, in the form of chlorides, were left in the solution for three weeks, and then precipitated by formalin or hydroxylamine. All of these substances were found to give out both α and β rays, the activity being greatest for rhodium and least for platinum. A large proportion of the β ray activity disappeared in the course of six weeks, and of the α ray activity in one year. It is probable that the two products radium E and F were in part removed with the metals from the radio-lead. We have seen that radium E gives out β rays and loses half of its activity in about six days, while radium F gives out only α rays and its activity falls to half value in 143 days. This conclusion is further confirmed by experiments on the effect of heat on the activity of these substances. By heating to a full red heat, the α ray activity was lost in a few seconds. This is
- ↑ Hofmann, Gonder and Wölfl, Annal. d. Phys. 15, p. 615, 1904.
