erty of matter, whether chemical or physical is still a question, which has been called radio-activity. Substances possessing this property emit light rays without apparent source of energy.

band will alternate with the orchestra in furnishing working on salts of Uranium, discovered a new propmusic and special decorations and attractions will be in evidence. Refreshments will be served from buffet tables and a bonfire on the campus will close the evening's festivities. It is hoped that every student or alumnus about College who is interested in dancing will make a special endeavor to be present at this affair.

The source of the most radio-active compounds, or elements, if such they prove to be. is pitchblende, a mineral of Uranium. Three strongly radio-active substances which have been separated are Polonium, allied to Barium, and Actinium. allied to Titanium.

Radium and Polonium have atomic weights and characteristic spectra which proves that they are simple substances.

THE theory has been advanced that the work of state colleges is often impeded by the close proximity of Experiment Stations and class-room and that the efficiency of instructors is modified by reason of their also being investigators in various lines of station work. The notion that the teacher of advanced sciences should be interested and versed in the theoretical part of his subject alone seems to be prevalent. In the annual report of the office of Experiment Stations, however, Mr. A. C. True, director, in speaking of the outlook for the Massachusetts Experiment Station states: "The utilization of the work of advanced The same chloride, dissolved in water and precipistudents in connection with the entomological investi- tated with alcohol. has produced a substance sevengations of the station is a good example of the advan-teen-thousand times as active as Uranium.

Radium is by far the most radio-active element. It is obtained as a chloride with chloride of Barium from which it never has been completely separated. Since Barium and its compounds are not radio-active. this property proves the presence of a new element. Radium Chloride is sixty times as active as Uranium.

tage of the combination of an experiment station and Thorium seems to be the weakest radio-active agricultural college in the same institution, provided element.

it is well equipped for higher work in special lines. Uranium, which is much stronger, produces an imMr. True has often advanced the opinion that the ex-pression on a photographic plate after an exposure of periment station investigator is out of his proper one hour. Radium produces the same effect in sphere when in the class-room. If his observations of thirty seconds. These rays resemble the famous the work of Massachusettss, advanced students and Röentgen rays. They permeate black paper, metal graduates has led him to form a contrary opinion, it sheets and if the hand be held between their source is certainly to the credit of our instructors who in so and a screen of the proper material, the bones of the many cases are connected with the Experiment Sta-fingers are shown in outline on the screen. tion.

RADIUM, THE PHYSICO-CHEMICAL

WONDER.

The developments of chemical and physical research in the past few years seem marvelous to us who reap benefits from them.

They are not, however, beyond some of the wild dreams of those who lived at a time when every spark of individual reasoning was promptly extinguished. Perhaps much of the alchemists belief was not madness. The philosopher's stone may not be found, but the perpetual lamp seems near realization.

During the year 1896. Henri Becquerel, while

They also ionize gases through which they pass and possess the power of electrification.

A radio-active substance has been found capable of discharging a gold-leaf electroscope at a distance of one-half metre.

Radium rays have oxidizing power, changing the oxygen of the air to ozone, if the substance be closely confined, and, if under glass, producing a brown color in the glass. probably by oxidizing Manganese in it. They also induce chemical action.

A little of the radio-active substance placed in a capsule and bound on the arm has produced a burn and under similar conditions has charred paper.

Rays from the same substance may or may not be

Deviation in an electrostatic field, and transportation of electric charges are two tests which identify them with Cathode rays.

deviable, the deviable rays being the more pene- structure which, by atomic activity, enables them to trating. throw off the slow-moving atmospheric molecules and to reduce the speed of the swift moving ones with additional energy to the body, this enegy being used partly in dissociating some of the molecules of the gas and partly in producing the phenomenal pulses through the ether. The checking of swiftly moving atmospheric molecules would cool the air near the substance but radiation and conduction would effectually cover this clue as to the source of energy.

Röentgen rays produce a fluorescent effect only so long as they strike the fluorescent body, while Radium rays produce an effect lasting several days.

Much greater activity is conferred, however, if the non-active substance be mixed into a solution of a radio-active salt, Barium thus treated becoming different from ordinary Barium.

Röentgen rays have been defined as pulses through the ether from interrupted streams of highly-charged molecules. It is thought by some that these new rays are midway between Röentgen rays and light rays in their character. As one has expressed it they a.e irregular pulses through the ether which are beginning to manifest regularity By comparing the magnetic with the electrostatic deviation the velocity of the pulses has been calculated and found equal to one-half that of light.

With this abundance of facts the mystery as to the source of radio-activity remains unsolved although several theories have been advanced.

Whether or not the source be found, since Uranium is three or four times as active as its salts, may we not expect wonders of Radium when freed from its chloride.

Madam Currie, of Paris, who with her husband has done much toward obtaining a better knowledge of these substances, got from a half ton of Uranium residues, only two kilograms of Barium chloride rich in Radium.

In view of this fact we may expect developments to come slowly and if Radium be obtained free, it will far exceed our richest metal in value.

The facts at hand have at least shown us these two things, that the physicist and the chemist must work hand in hand, and that Physical Chemistry is destined to open up spleneid avenues for the progress W. TOTTINGHAM.

UNSOLVED PROBLEMS OF CHEMISTRY.

The continuous disengagement of energy has been ascribed to phosphorescence of long duration, to sec-of science. ondary emissions of light provoked by rays constantly existing in space and absorbed only by certain elements, and to emission of matter with a loss of weight not apparent. The last theory is supported by Becquerel himself who supposes the emission to be of the same order as that from certain scented substances, ethers or, musk for example

This theory is also supported by the calculation that the loss of matter from each square antimeter of surface of the radio-active substance would equal one milligram in one-thousand million years.

ELEMENTS.

The first duty of the chemist is to examine every kind of matter accessible to him and to determine whether it is an element or not. If it is not, and this is usually the case, as regards the things found in nature, his next duty is to attack the compound in every way that is likely to lead to its decomposition, and when he reaches a substance from which he cannot get simpler ones, he calls this an element. What

The atomic weights of the allied elements are high elements are in the earth, in the air, in the water? as the following figures show:

An immense amount of work has been done that has had for its object the answering of this question. The earth has been ransacked almost from pole to pole. The air from all sorts of localities has been examined. The waters, from ocean, rivers and springs have been made to stand and answer the searching question of the chemist.

What is the result? In brief, it is this: Although

we find an infinite number of kinds of matter, all of spark is sufficient to cause the chemical action that is these can be resolved into a comparatively small accompanied by the explosion. We can collect number of elements. Altogether, between seventy everything that is formed, and show what changes in and eighty elements have been found. Out of these composition have taken place. But we should like to simplest forms of matter everything that we see or know something about the action itself. And so it is feel, or are in anyway cognizant of, is made up. But with the most common chemical changes that are now arises the deep quesiton: What is an element? studied in the laboratory. If one only could get a To this question chemists are not able to give an series of pictures at short intervals, we might by comanswer. Have the elements existed from the begin- bining these afterward get an idea what is taking ning of time, or have they been formed from a small place. There are ways of controlling certain classes number of simpler forms of matter, is a question that of chemical actions and reducing their speed, so that we cannot help asking. It may as well be acknowl- observations can be made during their progress, and edged at once that there is practically nothing known much has been learned in this way. in regard to the origin of the elements.

It has been suggested that the elements are the products of an evolutionary process that has been in progress from the beginning, and that they all owe their existence to a form of matter, simpler than any of the so-called elements. Some evidence in favor of this view seems to be furnished by the spectroscopic examination of the celestial bodies. The nebulae have been shown to contain the smallest number of our chemical elements; the hotter stars are somewhat more complex; in the colored stars and the sun a large number of elements appear; while the planets are the most complex. The complexity seems to depend upon the temperature. The higher the temperature the smaller the number of elements present. The elements known to us are probably derived from simpler forms, or from one single simplest form. If this is the true conception of the relations between the elements then in the beginning space must have been filled with an incandescent vapor made up of the simplest form of matter. As this has cooled it has taken other forms, and some of these are the things we now call elements.

LAWS OF CHEMICAL CHANGE.

Chemical actions are so rapid that it is impossible to make observations during their course. During the past fifteen or twenty years some of the great laws of chemical action have been discovered. What has been learned is, however, only enough to whet the appetite of chemists. To illustrate in another way what is meant by making an observation during a chemical action, take the case of gunpowder. This usually consists of charcoal, sulphur and saltpeter. A

Everyone knows that water is the most abundant substance on the earth. It also plays a more important part in the changes that are taking place on the earth than any other substance. We are only beginning to know how it acts. That it dissolves many things is well known, but let us not be misled because this phenomenon is so common, and so familiar. Put a little salt in water. What becomes of it? It disappears. There is no solid substance in the vessel. We cannot tell what has become of the salt. We can get the salt out of the water by boiling the solution and letting the water pass off as steam, when the salt will be left behind. As we put the salt in and take it out, we have been accustomed until recently to think of the salt as being present in the solution as such. One of the most important advances in chemistry made of late years is that which leads to the conception that, in dilute solutions at least there is little, if any, salt present; that, in some way, the water decomposes it into particles highly charged with electricity. These particles are called ions. This idea has thrown a great deal of light upon important problems of chemistry, but it has suggested many new ones. Some substances, for example sugar, do not act like salt when dissolved in water. Why this difference? Then again, some liquids which are good solvents do not act like water. What is it in water that distinguishes it from most other liquids, such as alcohol and ether, enabling it to tear many substances asunder. These are questions that are now very much to the front. Rapid progress is being made, and we may look for important discoveries in this field in the near future.

R. H. R., 1903.

THE PLEASURE OF BEING PLEASANT.

Good morning, 'tis a pleasant day," I remarked as I greeted old Robert the boatman, on the footbridge, as the sun rose over Saddleback.

"give the world a kick and it growls at your heels, throw it a bone and it crouches at your feet," All the world loves a jolly fellow, one who is bubbling over with fun, his presence seems to breathe new life and vigor into every atmosphere that he traverses, and it

Well, I'll try to make it pleasant," was his is always a pleasure to be near him. rejoinder.

AN IDLER.

To be sure we are not all built on this plan but it is The words struck me peculiarly, no doubt the given to all of us-the power to be at least pleasant thought was in my mind as well as in the mind of on most if not all occasons. If we receive pleasure others, but it never found utterance in just this manner. from the presence of others let us also be pleasant "I'll try to make it pleasant." The words have been that we may be a pleasure to others. ringing in my head since the day they were uttered. They are the words of a philosopher; the words of a man experienced in the pleasures as well as the hardships of life. And coming as they did but a few days after the death of the one most dear to him in his old age, they carried an added weight of influence.

Oh, pshaw, fellows, this is no sermon, don't turn away disgusted. These are but a few impressions of an Idler who has observed some things and noted them on his cuff." Now as a matter of fact we are all seeking after the pleasant things in life in some form or other; and to deny any one of this privilege would be to wander back into Puritan narrowness. And I'm not sure but that the old Puritan stoic was sort o' pleased with himself (if with nothing else) at times.

Well now to get down to rock bottom" of ordinary lie as M. Q. would say. When you went over to Hamp. last Saturday night, Ted, did'nt you feel sort o' happy, down around the fifth rib, when Doris met you in the parlor with a pleasant smile. Suppose the maid should have returned as you sat there twirling your cap, and told you Miss Doris was indisposed; when you knew well enough if Jack's name had been sent up the illness would have rapidly disappeared. You'd have gone down the street in a mood that bodied ill to the one who should cross your path. However Doris was good to you even though she may have wished you anywhere else. Did you ever stop to think that you weren't quite as pleasant to-as you might have been.

It makes a " mighty heap of difference" how a fellow strokes the back of the world. The world in general may not worry over much about the fate of the stroker, but it makes a deal of difference with him. Some one said years ago, when I was younger,

THE LIBRARY.

The Library has been the resort, in all ages, of scholars and students the world over. From the parchment manuscript to the edition de luxe the Library has gathered within its walls the wealth of learning of the centuries; and the student of to-day cannot learn its value too soon. The text-books used in the prescribed courses of study are in themselves insufficient for thorough and deep research, hence the lists for collateral reading found in each book. One author is unable to produce in his work all that has been said or written upon any particular subject, but he may express, an old truth in a new form, with perhaps a little more light on its meaning and use; and another work referred to in connection with the reading or study of that particular one may make a problem more plain and a description more clear. And it is the Library that strives to gather in one place all the important works of any and all subjects of interest.

The purpose of the college, or school of any kind, is not simply to pour into the student knowledge that he may absorb like a sponge, without any effort of his own; but rather to teach him how to think for himself, how to discriminate between the useless and the useful. "Of the making of books there is no end," a man said hundreds of years before the art of printing was invented, as he looked with a prophetic eye through the ages to the nineteenth and twentieth centuries of the present age. And with the hundreds of new books published each month, together with the infinite number of newspapers and periodicals of all descriptions, the mind is lost in the confusion of sounds as well as confusion of opinions.