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This discovery was followed by Madame Curie's demonstration of the fact that certain specimens of pitchblende, a mineral which contains compounds of uranium and of many other metals, are extremely radio-active, and by the separation from pitchblende, by Monsieur and Madame Curie, of new substances much more radio-active than compounds of uranium or of thorium.
"Madame Curie discovered the light that looks through solid wood and iron, and you think wimmen can't see through unjust laws and practices, the rampant evils of to-day, and see what is on the other side, see a remedy for 'em.
When he reflected about it, he recalled that the flow of tide had shown itself at least twenty years before; that it had become marked as early as 1893; and that the man of science must have been sleepy indeed who did not jump from his chair like a scared dog when, in 1898, Mme. Curie threw on his desk the metaphysical bomb she called radium. There remained no hole to hide in.
The great thing, to his mind, was to find and get into communication with Pax. "Ah! How he must feel! The greatest achievement of all time!" cried Hooker radiantly. "How ecstatically happy! Earth blossoming like the rose! Well-watered valleys where deserts were before. War abolished, poverty, disease! Who can it be? Curie? No; she's bottled in Paris.
Instantly the leaves collapsed and he made a reading through the lens. "What is it?" I asked. "A radioscope," he replied, still observing the scale. "Really a very sensitive gold leaf electroscope, devised by one of the students of Madame Curie. This method of detection is far more sensitive even than the spectroscope." "What does it mean when the leaves collapse?" I asked.
Curie and her daughter are in charge of the X-ray apparatus at the hospital. Sir Bartle Frere is there as a guest. Miss Vaughan, of the Nursing Times, came in out of the dark one evening. To-day the King has been here. God bless him! he always does the right thing. 6 December. My horizon is bounded by soup and the men who drink it. There is a stir outside the kitchen, and someone says, "Convoi."
In 1895 came the discovery of the X-rays by Röntgen in Germany, to be followed in a year by Becquerel's discovery of spontaneous radio-activity, and in a couple of years by the remarkable further discovery, made by Madame Curie, of what was termed "radium," a substance that went on producing heat de novo, keeping itself permanently at a higher temperature than its surroundings, and spontaneously producing electricity.
Sometimes the King came to see his soldiers a tall, silent man, with the face of one who has suffered much, and as simple, as gentle, and as kindly as his Queen. It was good to see the faces light up as he entered a ward, to see heads painfully raised to gaze after no splendid uniform, but a man. One of our most distinguished and most welcome visitors was Madame Curie, the discoverer of radium.
Uncle William's had grown a little stern. He bent toward the stranger. "I don't think I jest caught your name," he said slowly. "My name is Curie," said the man, politely "Benjamin F. Curie." He extracted a card from his pocket and handed it to Uncle William with a deep bow. Uncle William pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.
Madame Curie, stimulated by her own discoveries and those of the other scientists just referred to, began a series of examinations upon various substances by numerous complicated methods to try and find a possible new element, as certain peculiarities of the substances found in the pitch-blende seemed to indicate the presence of some hitherto unknown body.
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