evaporated to dryness in a platinum vessel, and the activity of the residue tested by placing the vessel in an electroscope. In all cases, the rate of discharge of the electroscope was considerably increased. From about 50 c.c. of rain water, an amount of activity was obtained sufficient to increase the rate of discharge of the electroscope four or five times, after the rays had traversed a thin layer of aluminium or gold-leaf. The activity disappeared in the course of a few hours, falling to half value in about 30 minutes. Rain water, which had stood for some hours, showed no trace of activity. Tap water, when evaporated, left no active residue.
The amounts of activity obtained from a given quantity of rain water were all of the same order of magnitude, whether the rain was precipitated in fine or in large drops, by night or by day, or whether the rain was tested at the beginning or at the end of a heavy rainfall lasting several hours.
The activity obtained from rain is not destroyed by heating the platinum vessel to a red heat. In this and other respects it resembles the excited activity obtained on negatively charged wires exposed in the open air.
C. T. R. Wilson[1] obtained a radio-active precipitate from rain water by adding a little barium chloride and precipitating the barium with sulphuric acid. An active precipitate was also obtained when alum was added to the water, and the aluminium precipitated by ammonia. The precipitates obtained in this way showed a large activity. The filtrate when boiled down was quite inactive, showing that the active matter had been completely removed by precipitation. This effect is quite analogous to the production of active precipitates from a solution containing the active deposit of thorium (see section 185).
The radio-activity of freshly fallen snow was independently observed by C. T. R. Wilson[2] in England, and Allan[3] and McLennan[4] in Canada. In order to obtain a large amount of activity, the surface layer of snow was removed, and evaporated to dryness in a metal vessel. An active residue was obtained with radio-*
