clusion that may be reached is that the
Environmental Radiation
Measurements in Houses
Seventeen single-family and multiplefamily dwellings in the metropolitan
New York area, including three boroughs of New York City, nearby Long
Island, and Westchester County, also
have been investigated. The apparatus
used was essentially the same as that
radiation level inside houses in this area,
essentially irrespective of construction
materials, is generally somewhat lower
than, but not very different from, the
were made. Some of these observations
were made over granite paving blocks
or near granite buildings, which pre-
Measurements in Western Europe
readings than would have been obtained
over unpaved or more open areas.
A tabulation of these measurements
outdoor [evel in the same location.
A 20-liter ionization apparatus which
used for the outdoor measurements,
-except that the ionization current was
measured with a Cambridge Lindemann-Ryerson
quadrant
electrometer
rather than with a vibrating-reed electrometer.
A summary of these measurements is
shown in Table 3.
The general con-
had been exhibited at the second Inter-
national Conference on the Peaceful
Uses of Atomic Energy was taken to
Radiofysika Institut in Stockholm,
Sweden, by one of us (H. B.) for comparison with the environmental radiation equipment of Rolf Sievert’s labora-
Table 4. Radiation measurements in Western Europe, September 1958.
Location
Radiation (ur /hr)
Cosmic
Terrestrial
4.6
6.9
11.5
Geneva, Switzerland
Montreux, Switzerland
Offenburg, Germany
4.6
4.6
4.1
8.1
9.0
1.6
12.7
13.6
15.7
Heidelberg, Germany
Cologne, Germany
Wesel, Germany
Delft, Netherlands
4.0
4.0
3.9
3.9
11.8
8.3
10.4
10.0
15.8
12.3
14.3
13.9
Leeuwarden, Netherlands
3.8
9.2
Hamburg, Germany
Schleswig, Germany
3.8
3.7
9.9
12.4
Nyborg, Denmark
Granna, Sweden
Nykoping, Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden
Stockholm, Sweden
3.7
4.4
3.9
3.9
3.9
9.9
2.1
9.1
13.4
19.5
4.6
Notes
Total
Geneva, Switzerland
Geneva, Switzerland
tory (9). En route between Geneva and
Stockholm, a number of measurements
9.0
13.6
,
13.0
13.7
16.1
13.6
16.5
23.0
17.3
23.4
Airport
Near Cathedral of St.
Pierre
Residential area
Center of town
Center of town: block
pavement
Business district
Near cathedral
Center of town
Center of town; brick
pavement
Center of town; brick
roadway
Business district
Center of town; Belgian block pavement
Off highway
Off highway
Center of town
Business district
Residential area; stone
paving blocks
sumably
produced
somewhat
higher
is given in Table 4. In general, the
radiation levels observed are similar to
measurements made at corresponding
altitudes in the United States. The
four measurements made in Sweden
are consistent with the published work
of Sievert (/0).
References and Notes
1. L. R. Solon, W. M. Lowder, A. V. Zila.
H. BD. LeVine, H. Blatz, M. Eisenbud, Science
127, 1183 (1958).
, U.S, Atomic Energy Comm. Rept.
2.
No. HASL-25 (March 1958). We acknowledge the assistance furnished us by the instrumentation division of the Health and
Safety Laboratory.
3. K. O’Brien, W. M. Lowder, L. R. Solon,
Radiation Research 9, 216 (1958).
4. W. G. Brombacher, Natl Advisory Comm.
Aeronaut. Rept. No. 538 (1948).
5. H. V. Neher, in Progress in Cosmic Ray
Physics (North-Holland, Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1952), vol. 1.
6. V. F. Hess and G. A. O’Donnell, J. Geophys.
Research 56, 557 (1951).
7. P. R. J. Burch, Proc. Phys. Soc. (London)
67, 421 (1954),
8. The complete data for the 1957-1959 measurements are presented in “U.S. Atomic Energy
Comm. Rept. No. HASL-73,” in preparation.
9, The agreement in the same locations between
Measurements made with our air-filled, relatively thin-walled chamber and Sievert’s pressurized, nitrogen-filled, steel-walled chamber
was very close (within 2 percent). Since both
chambers were calibrated with radium, there
is some support for our belief that the spectral
composition of terrestrial radiation is not very
different in quality from the radium spectrum.
Analytical work relevant to this point may be
found in K. O’Brien, W. M. Lowder, L. R.
Solon, Radiation Research 9, 216 (1958).
10. R. M. Sievert and B. Hultqvist, Acta Radiol.
37, 388 (1952).
SCIENCE. VOL. 131