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8vo. Half-title; half-tone plate, line illustrations in text. (Ink inscription effaced on front free endpaper.)  Original publisher’s green gilt-lettered cloth (very slight wear to extremities); green cloth slipcase. Provenance: Vernon R. Davies (gift bookplate to); Library of the University of Toronto (discard stamp and pencil markings on title verso).

 

FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST TEXTBOOK ON RADIOACTIVITY, “recognized as a classic at its publication in 1904” (DSB). "He discovered and named alpha and beta rays emitted from radio-active salts and predicted that disintegration of some radioactive elements would generate helium. He also produced in the laboratory the first artificial transmutation of one element into another" (Dibner). Based on these experiments conducted 1902-1903, Rutherford’s transformation theory, described in the present work, states that radioactivity is a by-product of the transmutation of one element into another. Owing to further developments and the popularity of the work, a second edition, half as big again to include Rutherford’s most recent developments, had to be published in the following year. [With:] Clipped obituary for Rutherford from the McGill bulletin laid in. Dibner Heralds of Science 51; Grolier/Horblit 91; Norman 1871.