All the barium-radium compounds _are spontaneously luminous_. The dry
anhydrous halogen salts emit a particularly intense light. This
illumination cannot be seen in broad daylight, but it is easily visible
in the twilight or by gas-light. The light emitted may be strong enough
to read by in the dark. The light emitted emanates from the entire body
of the product, whilst in the case of a common phosphorescent body, the
light emanates specially from the portion of the surface illuminated.
Radium products lose much of their luminosity in damp air, but they
regain it on drying (Giesel). There is apparently conservation of
luminosity. After many years no sensible modification is produced in the
luminosity of feebly active products, kept in the dark in sealed tubes.
In the case of very active and very luminous radium-barium chloride, the
light changes colour after several months; it becomes more violet and
loses in intensity; at the same time the product undergoes
transformations; on re-dissolving the salt in water and drying it
afresh, the original luminosity is restored.
Solutions of barium-radium salts, which contain a large proportion of
radium, are equally luminous; this fact may be observed by placing the
solution in a platinum capsule, which not being itself luminous permits
of the faint luminosity of the solution being seen.
When a solution of a barium-radium salt contains crystals deposited in
it, these crystals are luminous at the bottom of the solution, and much
more so than the solution itself, so that they alone appear luminous.
M. Giesel has made a preparation of barium-radium platinocyanide. When
this salt is newly crystallised, it has the appearance of ordinary
barium platinocyanide and is very luminous. But gradually the salt
becomes spontaneously coloured, taking a brown tint, the crystals at the
same time becoming dichroic. In this state the salt is much less
luminous, although its radio-activity is increased. The radium
platinocyanide, prepared by M. Giesel, changes still more rapidly.
Radium compounds are the first example of self-luminous bodies.
_Evolution of Heat by the Salts of Radium._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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