TRANSMUTATION OF ELEMENTS.

Colonist, Volume LV, Issue 13649, 14 February 1913, Page 4

TRANSMUTATION OF ELEMENTS.

The cable message from London published tho other day announcing that Sir Wdlliam Ramsay, Professor Collie, and Mr. H. Patorson, of Leeds University, had successfully conducted experiments establishing either the transmutation of elements or the transformation of energy into matter, is calculated to arouse interest not alone in scientific circles. In order to obtain expert information on the subject, the "Lyttelton; Times" interviewed Professor C. Coleridge Farr, who explained that the position was that certain elements, known as radio-active, were spontaneously disintegrating and changing into other elements without it Joeing possible ,so far for anyone to control tho speed at which they did it. Certain other bodies were, apparently, fixed, for it i had not been found possible thus far to transform any one of them. If, and the "if" needed considerable emphasis, the news contained in the cablegram was confirmed, then it meant, apparently, that one fixed.body, hydrogen, liad been transformed into another, called neon. The possibilities lying.behind such a discovery wore incalculable. However, the result required confirmation. Professor Ramsay and Mr. Cameron some time ago announced that radium emanation acting on water vapour produced neon and argon, but it was subsequently shown that the result which they had obtained was due to impurities in the waterr vapou originally used. Then the same genVtlemen announced. that radium emanation acting upon copper salts produced sodium, potassium, and lithium. These results were examined by Madame Curie and Mdlle. Gleditsch, who were unable to, confirm them. Ramsay and Usher stated that carbon dioxide was produced by vthe action'of radium emanation upon phorium and zirconium, but it had been found impossible to obtain that,result when-every precaution was taken to avoid the; presence of organic matter; It was by ;no means an uncommon experiment,, Professor Farr added, to pass an> electric discharge down a vacuum tube containing a small quanLtity of hydrogen,' and if the hydrogen i was thereby changed into neon it could hardly have escaped detection ere this. For the present, with all these-uncon-firmed''"discoveries-" in mind, it would be advisable to ■ hear what other scientists, especially Professor Rutherford, had to say on the matter before accepting tlio conclusions arrived at.