The Production of Radium from Actinium

Abstract

THE experimental evidence on the growth of radium from uranium has in the past been somewhat conflicting. Both Mr. Soddy and Mr. Whetham have stated that they observed an increase with the time in the amount of radium in solutions of certain uranium salts which were under examination. The writer, however, was able to show that, starting with a solution of uranium nitrate carefully purified by repeated crystallisation, the amount of radium formed in an interval of eighteen months was less than one two-thousandth of the amount which was to be expected from the disintegration theory.