§ 103. Conclusion.
We have shown that modern science indicates the essential truth of
alchemistic doctrine, and our task is ended. Writing in 1904, Sir
William Ramsay said: "If these hypotheses [concerning the possibility of
causing the atoms of ordinary elements to absorb energy] are just, then
the transmutations of the elements no longer appears an idle dream. The
philosopher's stone will have been discovered, and it is not beyond the
bounds of possibility that it may lead to that other goal of the
philosophers of the dark ages—the elixir vitæ. For the
action of living cells is also dependent on the nature and direction of
the energy which they contain; and who can say that it will be
impossible to control their action, when the means of imparting and
controlling energy shall have been investigated?"
31 Whatever may be the final verdict
concerning his own experiments, those of Sir Ernest Rutherford, referred
to in the Preface to the present edition, demonstrate the fact of
transmutation; and it is worth noticing how many of the alchemists'
obscure descriptions of their Magistery well apply to that marvellous
something which we call Energy, the true "First Matter" of the Universe.
And of the other problem, the
Elixir Vitæ, who knows?
[1.]
They must not be confused with the
greenish-yellow phosphorescence which is also produced: the X-rays are
invisible.
[2.]
See Madame SKLODOWSKA CURIE'S Radio-active
Substances (2nd ed., 1904).
[3.]
See Sir T. E. THORPE: "On the Atomic Weight of
Radium" (Bakerian Lecture for 1907. Delivered before the Royal Society,
June 20, 1907), Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol.
lxxx. pp. 298 et seq.; reprinted in The Chemical News,
vol. xcvii. pp. 229 et seq. (May 15, 1908).
[4.]
Madame P. CURIE and M. A. DEBIERNE: "Sur le
radium métallique," Comptes Rendus heldomadaires des
Séances l'Academie des Sciences, vol. cli. (1910), pp.
523-525. (For an English translation of this paper see The Chemical
News, vol. cii. p. 175.)
[5.]
This follows from Avogadro's Hypothesis, see
§ 76.
[6.]
Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY and Dr. R. W. GRAY: "La
densité de l'émanation du radium," Comptes Rendus
hebdomadaires des Séances de l'Académie des Sciences,
vol. cvi. (1910), pp. 126 et seq.
[7.]
This view regarding the γ-rays is not,
however, universally accepted, some scientists regarding them as
consisting of a stream of particles moving with very high
velocities.
[8.]
Sir WILLIAM CROOKES, F.R.S.: "Radio-activity of
Uranium," Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol. lxvi.
(1900), pp. 409 et seq.
[9.]
E. RUTHERFORD, F.R.S., and H. T. BARNES, D.Sc.:
"Heating Effect of the Radium Emanation," Philosophical Magazine
[6], vol. vii. (1904), pp. 202 et seq.
[10.]
Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY and FREDERICK SODDY:
"Experiments in Radioactivity and the Production of Helium from Radium,"
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, vol. lxxii. (1903),
pp. 204 et seq.
[11.]
E. RUTHERFORD, F.R.S., and T. ROYDS, M.Sc.:
"The Nature of the α-particle from Radio-active Substances,"
Philosophical Magazine [6], vol. xvii. (1909), pp. 281 et
seq.
[12.]
By Ramsay. See Proceedings of the Chemical
Society, vol. xxv. (1909), pp. 82 and 83.
[13.]
By Professor Onnes. See Chemical News,
vol. xcviii. p. 37 (July 24, 1908).
[14.]
See Professor H. C. JONES: The Electrical
Nature of Matter and Radioactivity (1906), pp. 125—126.
[15.]
It has been definitely proved, for example,
that the common element potassium is radioactive, though very feebly so
(it emits β-rays). It is also interesting to note that many common
substances emit corpuscles at high temperatures.
[16.]
Says Peter Bonus, however, " . . . we know
that the generation of metals occupies thousands of years . . . in
Nature's workshop . . ." (see The New Pearl of Great Price, Mr.
A. E. Waite's translation, p. 55), and certain others of the alchemists
expressed a similar view.
[17.]
Sir WILLIAM A. TILDEN: The Elements:
Speculations as to their Nature and Origin (1910), pp. 108, 109, 133
and 134. With regard to Sir William Tilden's remarks, it is very
interesting to note that Swedenborg (who was born when Newton was
between forty and fifty years old) not only differed from that great
philosopher on those very points on which modern scientific philosophy
is at variance with Newton, but, as is now recognised by scientific men,
anticipated many modern discoveries and scientific theories. It would be
a most interesting task to set forth the agreement existing between
Swedenborg's theories and the latest products of scientific thought
concerning the nature of the physical universe. Such, however, would lie
without the confines of the present work.
[18.]
Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY: "The Chemical Action of
the Radium Emanation. Pt. I., Action on Distilled Water," Journal of
the Chemical Society, vol. xci. (1907), pp. 931 et seq.
ALEXANDER T. CAMERON and Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY, ibid. "Pt. II., On
Solutions containing Copper, and Lead, and on Water," ibid. pp.
1593 et seq. "Pt. III., On Water and Certain Gases,"
ibid. vol. xciii. (1908), pp. 966 et seq. "Pt. IV., On
Water," ibid. pp. 992 et seq.
[19.]
Journal of the Chemical Society, vol.
xciii. (1908), p. 997.
[20.]
E. RUTHERFORD, F.R.S., and T. ROYDS, M.Sc.:
"The Action of Radium Emanation on Water," Philosophical Magazine
[6], vol. xvi. (1908), pp. 812 et seq.
[22.]
Journal of the Chemical Society, vol.
xci. (1907), pp. 1605-1606. More recent experiments, however, proved
that the α-particle does consist of an electrically charged
helium-atom, and this view was latterly accepted by Sir William Ramsay,
so that the above suggestions must be modified in accordance therewith.
(See § 94.)
[23.]
Madame CURIE and Mademoiselle GLEDITSCH:
"Action de 'émanation du radium sur les solutions des sels de
cuivre," Comptes Rendus hebdomadaires de Séances de l'Acadimie
des Sciences, vol. cxlvii. (1908), pp. 345 et seq. (For an
English translation of this paper, see The Chemical News, vol.
xcviii. pp. 157 and 158.)
[24.]
EDGAR PHILIP PERMAN: "The Direct Action of
Radium on Copper and Gold," Proceedings of the Chemical Society,
vol. xxiv. (1908), p. 214.
[25.]
Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY: "Elements and Electrons,"
Journal of the Chemical Society, vol. xcv. (1909), pp. 624 et
seq.
[26.]
For a brief account in English of these later
experiments see The Chemical News, vol. c. p. 209 (October 29,
1909).
[27.]
Diamond is transformed into graphite when
heated by a powerful electric current between carbon poles, and both
diamond and graphite can be indirectly converted into charcoal. The
artificial production of the diamond, however, is a more difficult
process; but the late Professor Moissan succeeded in effecting it, so
far as very small diamonds are concerned, by dissolving charcoal in
molten iron or silver and allowing it to crystallise from the solution
under high pressure. Graphite was also obtained. Red phosphorus is
produced from yellow phosphorus by heating the latter in absence of air.
The temperature 240-250° C. is the most suitable; at higher
temperatures the reverse change sets in, red phosphorus being converted
into yellow phosphorus.
[28.]
Professor HENRY M. HOWE, LL.D.: "Allotropy or
Transmutation." (See The Chemical News, vol. cii. pp. 153 and
154, September 23, 1910.)
[29.]
For a defence of the view that chemical
substances may be regarded as energy-complexes, and that this view is
equally as valid as the older notion of a chemical substance as an
inertia-complex, i.e., as something made up entirely of different
units or atoms each characterised by the possession of a definite and
constant weight at a fixed point on the earth's surface, see an article
by the present writer, entitled "The Claims of Thermochemistry,"
Knowledge and Scientific News, vol. vii. (New Series), pp. 227
et seq. (July, 1910).
[30.]
In some cases the heat change accompanying
the transformation of an element into an "allotropic modication"{sic}
can be measured directly. More frequently, however, it is calculated as
the difference between the quantities of heat obtained when the two
"forms" are converted into one and the same compound.
[31.]
Sir WILLIAM RAMSAY: "Radium and its
Products," Harper's Magazine (December 1904), vol. xlix.
(European Edition), p. 57.
THE END.
