“[I]f one dissolved uranyl salts in water, the solutions would be fluorescent–one part in a million was sufficient. The fluorescence could also be transferred to glass, and uranium glass or “canary glass” had been very popular in Victorian and Edwardian houses. . . . Canary glass transmitted yellow light and was usually yellow to look through, but fluoresced a brilliant emerald green under the impact of the shorter wavelengths in daylight, so it would often appear to shimmer, shifting between green and yellow depending on the angle of illumination.”
—Oliver Sacks, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, 2001.