Abstract
IN a paper in the Phil. Mag., December, 1907, I described some experiments made by me on the conductivity of air confined in metallic cylinders, 60 cm. long and 24 cm. in diameter, which were made of lead, of zinc, and of aluminium. With the zinc and aluminium carefully cleaned, a conductivity was obtained for the enclosed air, which on reduction gave the value 15 for q, the number of ions generated per c.c. per second in the air. With lead cylinders, which were investigated more extensively than those of other metals, the conductivity exhibited wide variations, and values were obtained which ranged from 160 to 23 ions per c.c. per second.
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MCLENNAN, J. The Radio-activity of Ordinary Metals: the Penetrating Radiation from the Earth. Nature 77, 607 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077607a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077607a0
