[D0331AAI], Letter from William Joseph Hammer to Thomas Alva Edison, November 20th, 1903
https://edisondigital.rutgers.edu/document/D0331AAI
Transcription
[TAE Marginalia] >When you come over will give you x-ray data, would like to get some more Radium. There is some kids of Wilmette far more power than others. I have some-Edison< New York, November 20, 1903 Thomas A. Edison, Esq., Orange, N.J. My Dear Mr. Edison: Your favor of November 17th received. I note what you say regarding the option of you patent. I have written my client about this and have suggested that he make some proposition to secure an option or purchase the patent outright at an early date, so that I might lay the same before you after January the 1st, when the present option held by Mr. Lewis, expires. I received the check for the Radium. I am interested to know that you have over 100 chemicals that fluoresce when exposed to the Radium. I have myself examined quite a large number, and have made some mixtures of Radium with various substances which glow most beautifully in the dark. If I again succeed in securing the sample of Radium of 300,000 radio-activity, which was imported for a client of mine and used on a cancer case, I will bring it out to Orange for you to try on your samples, as it is far superior to any samples which I have made experiments with. I should be very glad to embody the results of your most interesting investigations into fluorescent substances which you made at the time of your X-Ray investigations in the new edition of my book, if you feel disposed to place certain of this work at my disposal. Mr. Aylesworth writes me today that he is sending me by your instruction some samples of tungstate of calcium, which I will send to Professors Crookes, Curie and Becquerel with the other things I am fixing up for them. Are you willing to say anything to Professor Curie regarding your preparation of tungstate of calcium? He asked in his letter tome how this was prepared. I presume he will be satisfied to secure some of the substance itself, but if you are willing to tell him the process I shall be glad to do so. Mme Curie's recent Theses the entire process employed by them in securing Radium and other radio-active preparations. Permit me to suggest that you mix a little radium carbonate with your powdered willemite, sulphide of calcium, zinc, strontium, etc., you will find these mixtures are magnificent in their phosphorescent. I have a number of these preparations, which I can bring over for you to see, and if you should like to get more of the carbonate of Radium I can get some for you at between $5 and $10 a gramme. I have one of the new Marckwald polonium bismuth discs, in fact the only one which has arrived in this country. Any of the fluorescent substances placed on the surface of this disc are beautifully simulated by the metallic polonium which has been electrically deposited on the surface of the disc. Permit me also to suggest that you secure one of the ultra-violet lamps made by Messrs Waite & Bartlett, which cost $12 to $15. They have iron electrodes, and a rock crystal lens. When this lamp is bridged across the secondaries of an induction coil in parallel with a small Leyden Jar, it gives a very powerful ultra-violet spark, and it is the best and handiest piece of apparatus for studying phosphorescent and fluorescent minerals and other substances, which as you know are powerfully by the ultra-violet light. I have been using one of these lamps with the greatest success, and will bring mine over to show you, if you wish, or would you get one of these lamps. Yours very sincerely, Wm J. Hammer