minerals, and the wide range of locality from which they were obtained, the results afford a direct and satisfactory proof that the amount of radium in the minerals is directly proportional to the amount of uranium.
In this connection, it is of interest to note that Boltwood found that a considerable quantity of radium existed in various varieties of monazite, although most of the previous analyses agreed in stating that no uranium was present. A careful examination was in consequence made to test this point, and it was found by special methods that uranium was present, and in about the amount to be expected from the theory. The ordinary methods of analysis failed to give correct results on account of the presence of phosphates.
Results of a similar character have recently been given by Strutt[1].
The weight of radium in a mineral per gram of uranium is thus a definite constant of considerable practical importance. Its value was recently determined by Boltwood by comparison of the emanation, liberated from a known weight of uraninite, with that liberated from a known quantity of pure radium bromide, supplied for the purpose by the writer. A measured weight of radium bromide was taken from a stock which gave out heat at a rate of slightly over 100 gram calories per hour per gram, and was thus probably pure. This was dissolved in water, and, by successive dilutions, a standard solution was made up containing 10^{-7} gram of radium bromide per c.c. Taking the constitution of radium bromide as RaBr_{2}, it was deduced that the weight of radium per gram of uranium in any mineral was 8·0 × 10{-7} gram. The amount of radium in a mineral per ton of uranium is thus 0·72 gram.
Strutt (loc. cit.) obtained a value nearly twice as great, but he had no means of ascertaining the purity of his radium bromide.
This amount of radium per gram of uranium is of the right order of magnitude to be expected on the disintegration theory, if uranium is the parent of radium. The activity of pure radium, compared with uranium, is not known with sufficient accuracy to
- ↑ Strutt, Proc. Roy. Soc. March 2, 1905.
