Studies on egg shells. IV.—The site of deposition of radioactive calcium and phosphorus

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Abstract
Egg shells from birds fed with either radioactive calcium or phosphorus have been examined by taking autoradiographs of tangential sections. The autoradiographs for calcium show a distinctive form of layering, which can be correlated with time of laying. This is interpreted as indicating that the supply of calcium to the shell gland may be made up entirely of food calcium or entirely of bone calcium or of varying proportions of the two, depending upon the time of day that a particular layer of the shell was being deposited. The autoradiographs for phosphorus indicate that most of it is in the outermost layer of shell, with some of it actually on the surface.