The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1904-12-29
PHILOSOPHERS STONE.
Basis for Belief In Its Reality May be
Radium.
From the New York Times.

from the New York Times.
Paraeelsus, the arch magician of the
dark ages. announced that there abides
In nature a certain form Of matter which,
being discovered and brought by art to
perfection converts to itself proportion
ally all imperfect bodies that It touches"
Following this definition Of the philoso-
piers stone came a period of mysti-
cism and charlatanry, swaying the world
with the belief that the baser metals
might be changed to gold. It Is strange,
therefore, that the formula Of Paracelsus
should express with precision the conclu-
sions adopted by a modern chemist no
less skeptical and distinguished than Sir
William Ramsay, who in Harpers Mag
ezine makes known his opinion that the
stone" may actually have been found
in the piercing and transmitting cleo
irons OF radilim.
This opinion is not yet a belief, and
the conclusions are but tentative. Pros
fessor Ramsay assures us, however that
they constitute a working hypothesis. In
1868 NJ. Jansen, the French astronomer,
discovered an unknown element, after
ward named helium. in the chromosphere
of the sun during an eclipse. Ramsay in
1895 found and identified this element
or the earth Only lately he has as
certained, with the aid of other scientists
the astonishing fact that the e1ectrons of
the element radium-whlch are exceed
ingly minute particles shot off with enor-
nous velocity-when acting upon glass
change, disintegrate and ''build-up' new
atoms of similar radio active elements,
notably helium. 1t Is a legitimate in
ference, declares Sir William Ramsay,
that If the atoms of ordinary elements
could be made to absorb energy they
would undergo change of a constructive
and not of a descriptive nature"
If, as looks probable, he maintains, the
action of the electrons, themselves the
conveyors of enormous energy on such
matter as glass is to build up atoms
which are radio active" and IF it be
found that the particular matter pro-
duced depends on the element" on which
the electrons fall and to which they i'm
part their energy then the transmuta ton
Of elements no longer appears an idle
dream" He says further:
The philosophers stone will have been
discovered, and it is not beyond the
bOuIdo u pOShlbilllJ mat II may iNeh
to that other goal Of the philosophers of
the dark ages. the elixer vitae. for the ac-
ton 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 controy their
action when the means of impartlng and
controlling energy shall have been inVes-
| tigated?
Transmutation appears to be a fact
| III at least one instance. 1t Is almost
certain that radium itself an element
changed into various other elements.
Moreover, its life In its present form is
a comparatively short one, and 1t must
therefore be in course of formation, else
the amount would be exhausted in about
$500 years The inference may not be
resisted that not this element merely, but
! several elements, are undergoing spon-
/ tsneous change into other forms of mat
ter, themselves highly energized, and
/ themselves unstable. Men already control
| the process of transmitting radium Have
| they indeed penetrated the secret at
| the foundation of the forms of matter and
| life?