be tested was spread on a shallow dish, placed in the glass tube C. A stream of dry dust-free air, kept constant during all the experiments, was passed over the compound and carried the emanation into the testing vessel. After ten minutes interval, the current due to the emanation in the testing vessel reached a constant value. The compound was then removed, and the standard comparison sample of equal weight substituted; the saturation current was observed when a steady state was again reached. The ratio of these two currents gives the ratio of the emanating power of the two samples.
It was found experimentally that, for the velocities of air current employed, the saturation current in the testing vessel was directly proportional to the weight of thorium, for weights up to 20 grams. This is explained by the supposition that the emanation is removed by the current of air from the mass of the compound, as fast as it is formed.
By means of this relation the emanating power of compounds which are not of equal weight can be compared.
It was found that thorium compounds varied enormously in emanating power, although the percentage proportion of thorium present in the compound was not very different. For example, the emanating power of thorium hydroxide was generally 3 to 4 times greater than that of ordinary thoria, obtained from the manufacturer. Thorium nitrate, in the solid state, had only ¹⁄₂₀₀ of the emanating power of ordinary thoria, while preparations of the carbonate were found to vary widely among themselves in emanating power, which depended upon slight variations in the method of preparation.
150. Effect of conditions on emanating power. The emanating power of different compounds of thorium and radium is much affected by the alteration of chemical and physical conditions. In this respect the emanating power, which is a measure of the rate of escape of the emanation into the surrounding gas, must not be confused with the rate of decay of the activity of the emanations themselves, which has already been shown to be unaffected by external conditions.
Dorn (loc. cit.) first observed that the emanating power of thorium and radium compounds was much affected by moisture. In a fuller investigation of this point by Rutherford and Soddy, it was found that the emanating power of thoria is from two to three times greater in a moist than in a dry gas. Continued desiccation of the thoria in a glass tube, containing phosphorus pentoxide, did not reduce the emanating power much below that observed in ordinary dry air. In the same way radium chloride in the solid state gives off very little emanation when in a dry gas, but the amount is much increased in a moist gas.
The rate of escape of emanation is much increased by solution of the compound. For example, thorium