eye is harmless, and as a consequence this agent is particularly useful in treating a cataract of the eye. Dr. Robert Abbe, of New York, senior surgeon of one of the great hospitals of that city, was one of the first, if not the very first doctor in America, to use radium.

D'

THE OWNERS OF RADIUM

R. HOWARD A. KELLY, of Baltimore, has more radium than any other one medical man in this country, perhaps in the world. Dr. Kelly has been using radium in his practice for twelve years. patients who had swollen

His cures include His cures include masses of glands on the sides of their necks; cancer of the thyroid; cancer of the cervix; fibroid tumors and sarcoma of the chest. Declares Dr. Kelly: "Radium is working its marvels every day and assuming its established place in medicine. The most brilliant successes of radium are scored in those fields in which a more aggressive surgical treatment is also usually successful. But where some serious complicating ailment, such as heart disease, tuberculosis, Bright's disease, or an extreme anemia, contra-indicates anæsthesia or any procedure which will tax the patient's vital resources, radium steps in and does its work quietly, imperceptibly, and, indeed, without the slightest risk to life."

Drs. John G. Clark, of Philadelphia, C. Jeff Miller, of New Orleans, and Albert J. Ochsner, of Chicago, are other famous surgeons who are using radium continuously. Out in San Francisco are Drs. Walter S. Franklin and Frederick C. Cordes, who have used radium successfully in treating serious affections of the eye. There is no doubt that radium has a wide field of usefulness in medicine, the real value of which can be estimated only after painstaking collective studies. It has no field absolutely to itself, but is merely a therapeutic agent which should be used in common with other well established methods of treatment. Experience has shown that it increases the permanent results obtained by surgery; it converts inoperable into operable cases, and last but not least, it materially relieves the suffering of the hopeless victims of disease.

Just as Mme. Curie gave the world radium through her brilliant work in chemistry, the late Joseph M. Flannery, of Pittsburgh, gave the United States its substantial lead in the production of radium metal. Some years ago, Mr. Flannery obtained control of a

specially designed stay-bolt for locomotives. He didn't seem to be able to find a satisfactory steel from which to make these bolts. He started to investigate the steel in the famous Damascus swords. An analysis showed that these swords contained a trace of vanadium, and Mr. Flannery started a search of the world for a supply of vanadium. While in London he heard of a deposit high up in the Andes Mountains in Peru. Returning to Pittsburgh, he got together all of the money he hadtwenty thousand dollars-converted his money into gold coin, and with his little fortune carefully packed in an old carpet bag, he went to the home of the mine owner in Peru and dumped the whole glittering mass upon this man's office table.

Without an unnecessary word, the young Pittsburgher reached for a rule and divided the pile of coin into what seemed two equal parts. "That half for your mine," he said, "and this half to improve and work the mineand a good job for you at a big salary to run it for our company." The psychological effect of the gold on the table was so irresistible, just as Mr. Flannery surmised it would be, that the Peruvian was won. The deal was closed then and there, and Flannery returned to the United States, where he slowly but surely convinced engineers of the superiority of vanadium steel.

In 1909, a sister of Mr. Flannery was afflicted with cancer, and the brother, in an effort to find a cure, again went to Europe. He learned that radium alone might help her, but found it impossible to obtain sufficient radium in Europe to serve his purpose. He returned to America determined to make his own radium in this country. The field was absolutely new. Experts were only familiar with work on high-grade ores-ores containing a high percentage of uranium. The ores which Mr. Flannery got control of in Colorado were of such low grade that hundreds of tons were necessary to yield a single gram of radium metal under treatment.

Mr. Flannery started to devise a method of his own. In the face of the pleas of his bankers, who believed he was making a foolish move, he withdrew from his vanadium interests. Getting together a small staff of engineers and chemists, he worked away quietly for fourteen months. for fourteen months. In 1913 he obtained the first radium made in this country. That year he produced 2.1 grams of the radium

element. In the five years that followed, his company's total output of radium was one ounce. However, this production was the most notable in the world, and amounted to more than one third of the world's estimated stock of high-purity radium. The company which Mr. Flannery established is now producing about fourteen grams each year, which is said to be double or triple the total production of all the other radium-producing companies in the world.

LUMINOUS DIALS

'N ADDITION to its use in medicine radium, like the X-ray, is rapidly entering into our industrial life. One common use of radium is for making luminous dials on watches and clocks. An examination of one of these radium dials through a powerful magnifying glass furnishes a sight that will never be forgotten.. The luminous material is seething with tiny flashes of light, caused by the explosions of radium atoms. As each atom explodes, a particle flies from it as a projectile from a gun. While it is impossible actually to see one of these particles, scientific investigation has shown that when one of these particles is suddenly stopped by striking a crystal of zinc sulphide, the heat is sufficient to make a flash of light the eye can see, and it is these flashes that are seen under the magnifying glass. They occur at the rate of 200,000 a second, and their combined light produces a glow that may easily be seen without a lens.

The more radium there is in the luminous material placed on the dial, the more flashes there will be and the brighter the dial. But every flash means a blow upon a crystal of zinc sulphide, and these crystals cannot stand these blows indefinitely. When the zinc finally fails, there are no more flashes, and the dial loses its glow. But the radium is still going good, for only of 1 per cent. of the radium is lost in a year. Experience has shown that if the amount of radium in the luminous material is so reduced that only 200,000 explosions occur each second, the zinc crystals will stand up under the bombardment for five years, which means that the dial of the watch or clock will be brilliant in the dark for that length of time.

The rôle of radium in industry as an agent of safety may be less spectacular, but it is no less important than the part it plays as a therapeutic agent. Accidents in factories,

mines, offices, and homes are being reduced in number through the use of radium-luminous material. This so-called radium paint is used on power-line switches, where fumbling by an operator might mean electrocution. The dependability of high-pressure gages is being materially increased through making them safe twenty-four hours a day, through the application of luminous material. Many electric switches are located in places which are unlighted. A dab of radium paint on the bottom of such a switch renders it easy to locate quickly in case of an emergency. Radium luminous material is also placed on fire extinguishers,

tion dials on safes, bolts under machines not easily accessible, compass dials and steering wheels on ships, gages and dials on automobiles, and telephones located in dark places.

W

WHAT MAY DEVELOP

WHILE all of these uses for radium indicate

the widening field of this remarkable new metal, the really important aspect of the radium problem is the possibility that further research with this element will lead eventually to a solution of the vital questions concerning the nature of radioactivity and the phenomena of transmutation. Down through the ages, human minds have devoted earnest thought to the development of a method for producing gold or some other precious metal from more common elements. Right here it may be stated that if we ever discover the secret of transmutation, it is certain that the last thing we would want to do would be to turn lead, mercury, or any other element into gold purely for the intrinsic value of the gold. The energy that would be liberated and made available through gaining control of chemical changes in the atom would have a far greater worth and a higher importance than the gold itself. Such energy could be used for combustion purposes, and if so employed, it would pay to take gold itself, even at its present value, and transmute it into silver or some base metal located farther down the periodic scale.

Radium has the greatest power of all discovered sources of energy. If one ton of it could be harnessed to a ship equipped with 1500-horse-power engines, the vessel would be propelled at the rate of fifteen knots an hour for thirty years. The great thing about radium is that every gram that is added to what we already have is in the nature of a

permanent addition. It requires something like 1600 years for the metal to lose one half of its potency. Then, after a second period of 1600 years, we still have one quarter of the radium energy we started with. At the end of about 20,000 years the original volume of radium will have ceased giving off emanations, and will have changed into common lead. If we could find a way to get a gram of radium to discharge in one minute all the energy it will eventually discharge in 20,000 years, there would be sufficient power in this one gram to raise out of the water all of the dreadnaughts in all of the navies of the world. A half-dozen grams of radium carried in a glass tube in a man's pocket would kill this individual in less than twenty-four hours by destroying his tissues and bones.

TREMENDOUS POWER AND VALUE

ment. Radium is the key to the unknown in science. Nothing man can conceive or imagine would be of greater importance to humanity than the discovery of a practical method to liberate the energy contained within atoms of the elements. The first step will be artificially to disintegrate heavier elements into higher ones. There is already strong evidence that it is possible to produce hydrogen through breaking down several heavier elements. One experimenter secured hydrogen and helium from an aluminum electrode by using a high potential electrical discharge in a vacuum tube.

AT

SOURCES OF NEW ENERGY

T PRESENT we know of but three possible sources of new energy-solar energy, the internal heat of the earth, and atomic disintegration. The last mentioned source

about 150 times as much energy as would be evolved in the complete combustion of the same weight of coal. The great potentiality of the situation lies in the possibility that someone will discover how to extract the energy which now oozes out so slowly from radioactive materials, in as short a time as he pleases. When we find a way to make radium expend its energy at any predetermined rate of speed, it means that we will be able to do the same thing with other elements. As one authority points out, if a gram of iron could be made to discharge the energy of its atoms in one minute, the power obtained would be equal to fifty tons of dynamite. A gram of radium in completely disintegrating into a small mass of lead actually yields 300,000 times as much heat energy as does the burning of a gram of coal. Of course, at the present time, we are compelled to be content with the spontaneous liberation of energy from the small amount of radium we have, and this energy or power is released so slowly that it is of no practical use to us except in medicine, where it is employed to bombard diseased tissues in the human body.

Although the three ounces of radium now available in the world are worth more than three million dollars because of the curative properties of the element, the real value of the mysterious metal lies rather in its use as a rare and promising material for experi

tention. We know that the atoms of radium are in constant process of breaking up. We know that this disintegration liberates energy, for it has been proved that the temperature of the air surrounding a piece of radium is about three degrees higher than the temperature beyond its vicinity. However, scientists have been unable to increase the flow of energy from radium by heating the metal to a temperature as high as that of the electric arc. Nor have investigators been able to slow down the disintegration of radium atoms by placing the metal in a temperature as low as that of liquid air. In other words, we are easily able to observe all of the phenomena of radioactivity and yet we cannot control this activity. That is the problem science is attempting to solve, and one day when the answer is written, the whole course of human life will be so changed through the utilization of the new knowledge that past revolutions will appear of small consequence in comparison.

When we have discovered the secret of the atom and can control its force, it is likely all nations will be ready and willing to lay down their arms and abolish their armies and navies. Statesmen will be glad to sit around a table and compromise their differences without ar talk of force, for a power will be available # the world so mighty in its potentialities 727 no person would dare consider its use for some constructive purpose.

P

RIOR to the so-called Opium War of 1840 foreign trade with China was limited to Canton. By the treaty of Nanking signed at the conclusion of that war, August 29,1842, China agreed to open to British trade, on the same conditions as Canton, the ports of Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo, and Shanghai. This was the origin of the five treaty ports. Notwithstanding the strong expressions of public opinion in other countries against the morality of the British insistence on the opium trade, all the great commercial nations profited by the war, and were quick to send envoys to China for the purpose of negotiating trade agreements. One of the first nations to take advantage of the situation was the United States. In fact, before the treaty of Nanking was signed, Commodore Kearny, who had been sent to Chinese waters with a squadron to protect American interests, addressed a formal communication to the governor of Canton in which he said that the United States would expect its citizens to "be placed upon the same footing as the merchants of the nation most favored." The governor promised to memorialize the Emperor to this effect.

In February, 1844, Caleb Cushing arrived in China at the head of an imposing mission for the purpose of negotiating a treaty of friendship and commerce. There was no direct intercourse with Peking in those days, all communications having to go through Canton. After tedious delays an imperial commissioner finally met Mr. Cushing at Macao and on July 3, 1844, our first treaty with China was signed. Mr. Cushing was an able lawyer and proved to be a shrewd negotiator. He secured for Americans admission to the five treaty ports, most-favored-nation treatment, and, under the principle of exterritoriality, exemption from the

Dur

jurisdiction of Chinese courts and laws. ing the next half century whatever concessions were extorted from China by England or France were immediately granted to us under the most-favored-nation clause.

In a few years Chinese laborers began coming to the United States, and under the Burlingame treaty of 1866 they were given as full rights and privileges as were enjoyed by the citizens or subjects of the most favored nation. Large numbers of them were at that time employed on the construction of the Union Pacific Railroad. But public opinion, which had at first been entirely favorable to Chinese immigration, soon underwent a change, and there came a demand from California for the abrogation of the Burlingame treaty. In 1878, after a long investigation by a committee of Congress, an act was passed limiting Chinese immigration, but President Hayes vetoed it as being in violation of treaty obligations. A commission, headed by President Angell of the University of Michigan, was then sent to Peking, and persuaded the Chinese Government to sign a treaty prohibiting the immigration of Chinese laborers, but expressly safeguarding the right of teachers, students, merchants, and travelers to come to the United States. These treaty restrictions have been renewed from time to time, but there have been frequent disputes with China over the rigid interpretation placed by our officials on these restrictions and the harsh methods employed in enforcing them. Upon several occasions we have wantonly ignored our treaty obligations.

For about two centuries Japan had pursued a policy of exclusion to an even greater degree than China. In 1854 the United States forced an entrance into Japan at the muzzle of the There were, it is true, certain definite grievances to redress, but the main reason for

cannon.

Commodore Perry's famous expedition was that Japan refused to recognize her obligations as a member of the family of nations and closed her ports to all intercourse with the outside world. American sailors who had been shipwrecked on the coasts of Japan had failed to receive the treatment usually accorded by civilized nations. Finally, the United States decided to send a naval force to Japan and to compel that country to abandon its policy of exclusion and to open its ports to intercourse with other countries. Perry's expedition was quite a radical departure from the general policy of minding our own business, but in the Orient, American diplomacy has had a freer hand than in Europe. Japan yielded

only under the threat of superior force. The conduct of the expedition as well as of our subsequent diplomatic negotiations with Japan, was highly creditable to the United States and the Japanese people later erected a monument to the memory of Perry on the spot where he first landed. For some years Japan remained unreconciled to the concessions she had been forced to make. But intercourse with the outer world soon led to a complete transformation of Japanese civilization, and the Japanese people entered upon one of the most remarkable careers of national development that history records. Until 1905 our relations with Japan were almost ideal. The Russo-Japanese War brought about changes that will be noted later.