The romance of radium, we may add, illustrates in an
agree- able manner the scientific comity of nations. It appears from the interesting speech delivered by M. Curie at the banquet of the Royal Society on Monday that he and his wife were in- debted to the intervention of a Viennese geologist, Herr Suess, for the Austrian Government's gift of the first quantity of uranium residue which enabled them to isolate radium. And now by a happy conjunction both Herr Suess and M. and Mme. Curie have been simultaneously honoured with the highest distinctions in their several departments of science which the Royal Society of Great Britain are able to bestow, —the former receiving the Copley, and M. and Mme. Curie the Davy, Medal. We confess to no little surprise that this remarkable achievement on the part of a woman—the partici- pation in an epoch-making discovery—has attracted so little comment. For Mme. Curie is no mere highly trained assistant —her thesis for the degree of Docteurelis-Sciences, which she obtained some years ago, is pronounced by competent judges to be a masterly piece of work—and the concentration and endurance required in carrying on the experiments which led. to the discovery of radium have no parallel in the history of science, unless it be that of Caroline Herschel. Mine. Curie, it should be added, is of Polish birth, a fact which has been appropriately commemorated in the naming of the element polonium.
Previous page
