The transfer of wear debris of a nickel-zinc ferrite head to a magnetic tape was measured by autoradiography of the tape after it was worn against the irradiated ferrite head. Ferrite deposits on the tape were observed only after 5000 passes. Dots or specks on the autoradiograph of the tapes of about 200 micrometers in diameter, caused by particles of ferrite about 1 μm in diameter and mass of about 10−11 g, were measured. The average amount of ferrite deposited on the tape after 20,000 passes was about 0.6 nanogram per square centimeter; some areas showed uniform deposits of ferrite concentration of 10–20 ng/cm2. Based on our estimates of total head wear, only a small fraction (about 0.6 percent) of the total ferrite wear debris was transferred to the tape, about 0.2 percent was transferred to the tape-drive component surfaces, and the rest, we conclude, was airborne.

The fast transfer system in the DR 2 reactor for irradiation at a thermal neutron flux density of 1013 n·cm−2·sec−1 was used for the determination of lithium by the7Li(n, γ)8Li reaction. β-counting with a large perspex Cerenkov detector begun at 0.3 s after the end of irradiation, and multi-scaler data was accumulated in 300 channels at 0.1 s per channel. With a suitable choice of discrimination level only16N and background interfere, and the 0.84 s half-life of8Li was resolved by the method of weighted least squares. Results are presented for 36 international geochemical reference materials, and for a few biological samples, including BOWEN's kale and the NBS Standard Reference Material 1571 Orchard Leaves.