Page:Radio-active substances.djvu/71

 Zinc sulphide, which has been exposed for a sufficient length of time to the action of radium, gradually becomes used up, and loses its phosphorescent property, whether under the action of radium or that of light.

The diamond becomes phosphorescent under the action of radium, and may thus be distinguished from paste imitations, which have only a very faint luminosity.

All the barium-radium compounds are spontaneously luminous. The dry anhydrous halogen salts emit a particularly intense light. This illumination cannot be seen in broad daylight, but it is easily visible in the twilight or by gas-light. The light emitted may be strong enough to read by in the dark. The light emitted emanates from the entire body of the product, whilst in the case of a common phosphorescent body, the light emanates specially from the portion of the surface illuminated. Radium products lose much of their luminosity in damp air, but they regain it on drying (Giesel). There is apparently conservation of luminosity. After many years no sensible modification is produced in the luminosity of feebly active products, kept in the dark in sealed tubes. In the case of very active and very luminous radium-barium chloride, the light changes colour after several months; it becomes more violet and loses in intensity; at the same time the product undergoes transformations; on re-dissolving the salt in water and drying it afresh, the original luminosity is restored.

Solutions of barium-radium salts, which contain a large proportion of radium, are equally luminous; this fact may be observed by placing the solution in a platinum capsule, which not being itself luminous permits of the faint luminosity of the solution being seen.

When a solution of a barium-radium salt contains crystals deposited in it, these crystals are luminous at the bottom of the solution, and much more so than the solution itself, so that they alone appear luminous.

M. Giesel has made a preparation of barium-radium platinocyanide. When this salt is newly crystallised, it has the appearance of ordinary barium platinocyanide and is very luminous. But gradually the salt becomes spontaneously coloured, taking a brown tint, the crystals at the same time becoming dichroic. In this state the salt is much less luminous, although its radio-activity is increased. The radium platinocyanide, prepared by M. Giesel, changes still more rapidly.

Radium compounds are the first example of self-luminous bodies.