These effects and their connection with the emanation are discussed more
fully in chapter VIII. Giesel[241] has recorded some interesting
observations of the effect of the radium emanation on a screen of
phosphorescent zinc sulphide. When a few centigrams of moist radium
bromide were placed on a screen any slight motion of the air caused the
luminosity to move to and fro on the screen. The direction of
phosphorescence could be altered at will by a slow current of air. The
effect was still further increased by placing the active material in a
tube and blowing the air through it towards the screen. A screen of
barium platinocyanide or of Balmain’s paint failed to give any visible
light under the same conditions. The luminosity was not altered by a
magnetic field, but it was affected by an electric field. If the screen
were charged the luminosity was more marked when it was negative than
when it was positive.
Giesel states that the luminosity was not equally distributed, but was
concentrated in a peculiar ring-shaped manner over the surface of the
screen. The concentration of luminosity on the negative, rather than on
the positive, electrode is probably due to the excited activity, caused
by the emanation, and not to the emanation itself, for this excited
activity is concentrated chiefly on the negative electrode in an
electric field (see chapter VIII).
An experiment to illustrate the phosphorescence produced in some
substances by the rays from a large amount of emanation is described in
section 165.
=148.= Curie and Debierne[242] have investigated the emanation from
radium, and the excited activity produced by it. Some experiments were
made on the amount of emanation given off from radium under very low
pressures. The tube containing the emanation was exhausted to a good
vacuum by a mercury pump. It was observed that a gas was given off from
the radium which produced excited activity on the glass walls. This gas
was extremely active, and rapidly affected a photographic plate through
the glass. It caused fluorescence on the surface of the glass and
rapidly blackened it, and was still active after standing ten days. When
spectroscopically examined, this gas did not show any new lines, but
generally those of the spectra of carbonic acid, hydrogen, and mercury.
In the light of the results described in section 124 the gas, given off
by the radium, was probably the non-active gases hydrogen and oxygen, in
which the active emanation was mixed in minute quantity. It will be
shown later (section 242) that the energy radiated from the emanation is
enormous compared with the amount of matter involved, and that the
effects observed, in most cases, are produced by an almost infinitesimal
amount of the emanation.
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