Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1879-02-08
TransmutatiOn Of Metals.

A correspondent of the London Daily
Ners writes: 4" Large as has been the
drafts of late upon our scientific credu-
lily, there has hardly been one which
makes 80 heavy demand on our pow
ers of faith as is involved in the state
ment that Mr.. Norman Lockyer has
realized the alchemists dream, the
transmutation of metals. Strange, in
credible as this may appear. there is
sufficient evidence of its having been
effected to make us at least suspend
our judgment and await the results of
further experiments before absolutely
refusing to believe. What seems GER
tain is as follows: To day (Monday),
in the presence of O small party Of
scientific men, Mr.. Lockyer, by the aid
of q powerful voltaic current, volatil-
lied copper within glass tube, dis
solved the deposit formed within the
tube by HORTICULTURAL acid, and then
showed, by means of the spectroscope,
that the solution contained no longer
copper, but another metal, calcium, the
base Of ordinary lime. The expert
ment was repeated with other metals
with corresponding results. Nickle
was thus changed into cobalt, and cal
cium into strontium. All these bodies,
as is well known, have ever been re-
garded as elementary, that is, as incapa-
BILE OF being resolved into components,
or of being changed one into another.
It is on this basis that all modern chem
istry is founded, and should Mr.. Lock
yer's discovery bear test of further
trial, our entire system of chemistry
will require revision. The future pos
sibilities of the discovery it is difficult
to limit. The great object of the old
alchemists was of course; to transmute
base metals into gold, and so far as our
knowledge goes there is no more rea-
son why copper should not be changed
into gold as we'll as into calcium. The
means at present employed are obvi-
ously such as to render the process far
more costly than any possible results
can be worth; but this is necessarily
the case with most scientific discover
les before they are turned into COM
mercial facts. / am not of course,
holding out any probability that such
will ever be the case; but all attitude
of mere incredulity is by no means
justifable in the matter. Mr.. Lockyer
is one of our best living spectroscopists,
and no man with reputation such as
his would risk the publication of SO
startling fact as he has just announced
to the scientific world without the very
surest grounds. He is known by his
friends as somewhat sanguine, and he
does not pretend to be an accomplished
chemist, but he was supported yester-
day by some of our leading chemists,
all of whom admitted that the results
of his experiments were inexplicable
on any other grounds but those admit
ting of the change Of one element into
another, unless, indeed, our whole sys-
tenn of spectrum analysis is to be upset,
the other horn of o very awkward di-
lemma. He has already made COM
munication to the Paris Academy of
Sciences on the subject, and he is about
to read paper before our own Royal
Society, in which we may hope to learn
the results Of his later experiments,
made since the paper was read in Paris.
For this full account of his researches
we shall look with no small interest,
for, since 100 years ago Priestly dis
covered oxygen and founded modern
chemistry, there has been, there could
be, no discovery made which would
have such an effect on modern science
as that the so.called elements were no
longer to be considered elementary. .