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Show How Professor Got Radium . Easterner Tells How He Obtained Enough of Precious Stuff for Experiments. An eastern college professor was lecturing on radium. "Radiunr, is so valuable," he declared, de-clared, "that most small laboratories have to get along as well as they can without the actual experiments. In fact, there are many colleges in this country which do not possess any radium radi-um at ail, and all that can be learned of the element is from books on the subject. I will tell you how I secured se-cured the radium with which I have been performing experiments for a , number of years. "It was not long after the Curies made their discovery when a noted French scientist came over to this country coun-try with a small quantity of the newly discovered substance, lie performed a number of the stock experiments before be-fore several hundred students in this lecture hall. When he concluded his discussion he took the small piece of paper on which the radium was lying and poured the precious grains back into their especially prepared recep-tical. recep-tical. After doing that, he, with the utmost, care, brushed the tiny dust from the paper, thereby causing his large class to burst into laughter at his seemingly exaggerated frugality. " 'You may laugh.' said the lecturer, 'but know that there are hundreds of institutions in this country that would give a great deal for th;;t little coating coat-ing of dust. , I have just saved. Many experiments could be performed with that alone for several years. 1 know what 1 am doing all right.' "The class broke into applause after this rebuke had been administered and the gathering broke up. The French scientist went on his way lecturing lec-turing and experimenting. A week later before one of my own classes I performed all the experiments we had had during the visit of the foreign physicist. Where did I get my radl- um? I didn't steal It as you may suspect. You will recollect that I mentioned men-tioned the fact that the Tadium had been brushedfrom a small slip of paper. pa-per. The Frenchman got his radium and threw the paper away. picked up the paper and with the particles of radium still adhering to It I can now perform all of his experiments. I have been doing so for several years and will continue for several more, when I expect to buy a larger quantity after the price goes down." |
