MISCELLANY. 



127 



been severely criticised at home and in this 

 country, replies to a personal attack by Dr. 

 Carpenter in a pamphlet which is attached 

 to the last number of the Quarterly Journal 

 of Science of which Mr. Crookes is editor. 

 Dr. Carpenter's article (published in the 

 Quarterly Review) was certainly a savage 

 assault ; and the style of Mr. Crookes's re- 

 ply is calculated to win the sympathy of 

 the reader. We have not entered the de- 

 bate upon Psychic Force, and we do not 

 care to express an opinion concerning the 

 furious personalities into which it has de- 

 generated But we lost confidence in Mr. 

 Crookes a good while ago ; and in this last 

 vindication of himself he has repeated the 

 offence which dishonored him then in the 

 eyes of all who were familiar with the facts. 

 These we shall briefly recapitulate : 



" 1. The discovery of sodium-amalgam 

 and its uses by Prof. Henry Wurtz, of this 

 city, and his application for a patent for the 

 invention was swiftly followed by a similar 

 invention by Mr. Crookes, in London, which 

 led to a discussion of the question of pri- 

 ority and originality. 



" 2. In this discussion, all the dates of 

 announcement, application, issuance of pat- 

 ent in fact, the whole of the circumstantial 

 evidence were in favor of the American 

 chemist. Mr. Crookes was on the defensive 

 throughout ; he never breathed the sugges- 

 tion that Prof. Wurtz got the idea from 

 him ; on the contrary, he attempted to re- 

 move the very natural suspicion that he re- 

 ceived the hint of it, at least, from the 

 American Patent-Office, through some one 

 of the spies, who, it is well known, make a 

 business of sending to England information 

 of new discoveries to be patented there 

 (according to the lovely British law) by the 

 'introducer' without reference to original 

 authorship. We repeat that Mr. Crookes 

 rested on his own solemn declaration that 

 this was not the case with the sodium- 

 amalgam patent ; that the instance was one 

 of independent, simultaneous discovery, not 

 unknown in the history of science. This 

 declaration of Mr. Crookes was accepted, in 

 view of his respectable standing, as con- 

 clusive ; and certain curious coincidences 

 between his specifications and the earliest 

 papers filed at Washington, by Prof. Wurtz, 

 were ranked as accidental. 



"3. A year or t)ro later, Mr. Crookes 

 published a translation of Kerl's 'Metal- 

 lurgy,' and in the chapter on silver intro- 

 duced a flattering description of Crookes's 

 Sodium-Amalgamation Process. No allu- 

 sion whatever is made to Prof. Wurtz in 

 the book. This is brazen enough ; but 

 worse remains behind. A letter in the San 

 Francisco Mining and Scientific Press ; an 

 address by Prof. Silliman before the Na- 

 tional Academy of Science at Washington ; 

 an account of experiments at Tulare County, 

 California, published in a San Francisco pa- 

 per ; and an account of experiments in 

 Colorado, given in this paper (then the 

 American Journal of Mining), are all quoted 

 as referring to Crookes's process, whereas 

 they all referred to the process patented in 

 this country by Prof. Wurtz. Some of 

 these documents, indeed, contained his 

 name, which Mr. Crooke3 deliberately 

 avoided quoting. 



" 4. We branded this piece of dishon- 

 esty as it deserved, more than three years 

 ago ; and we have never seen or heard 

 of any ' vindication ' from Mr. Crookes. 

 And now, in his reply to Dr. Carpenter, he 

 proudly alludes to his discovery of sodium- 

 amalgam, extensively used in Australia, 

 California, etc., as one of his claims to the 

 respect of scientific men. The psychic 

 force of ' a lie, well stuck to,' is proverbi- 

 al.; but it will not work in this case, across 

 the Atlantic Ocean. We do not accept any 

 statements whatever, on the authority of 

 Mr. Crookes, until he has confessed and 

 atoned for the outrage we have now for the 

 second time exposed. 



" It is quite immaterial whether he did 

 really discover sodium-amalgam ; it is im- 

 material that the discovery is of no great 

 practical value, and that the process is not 

 in general use anywhere, and has long been 

 abandoned in this country. Our charge is 

 not against the originality or the value of 

 Mr. Crookes's ' invention ; ' it affects di- 

 rectly his conception of truthfulness and 

 honor, his claims to belief as a witness 

 and to respect as a man. According to our 

 notions of the brotherhood of science, its 

 members always confide in one another's 

 sincerity and good faith. A person who 

 cannot be trusted so far is, ipso facto, not a 

 member." 



