46 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



SOME KECENT TRANSMUTATIONS 1 



By Professor CHARLES BASKERVILLE 



COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK 



IT would prove of little general profit to review the elaborate alchem- 

 ical literature of the nineteenth century. It may be stated that 

 in 1832 Schneider published in Halle a history of alchemy accepting 

 the transmutation of the metals as accomplished by those aware of the 

 necessary procedures. The study of alchemy prospered in France, 2 

 although it has generally been considered that the new chemistry, 

 beginning, as it were, with Lavoisier, put down absolutely the proba- 

 bility of the transmutation of the metals. The affairs of the Alchem- 

 ical Association of France, the successor of the Societe Hermetique, 

 founded by Albert Poisson, are controlled by the secretary-general, 

 assisted by seven councilors, who hold an annual meeting. Numbered 

 among the honorary members are the astronomer, Flammarion, and 

 August Strindberg, 3 a Swedish resident in Austria. 



Although Marignac 4 acknowledged that the habitual association in 

 nature of groups of elements, as for example titanium, tantalum and 

 columbium, offered one of the strongest proofs that can be found for 

 the community of their origin, it is of conservative interest to observe 

 that von Meyer, in that charming " History of Chemistry " of his, 5 

 says : " The final echoes of the alchemistic problem which had for so 

 long a period of time held the cultured of every nation in a state of 

 tension, and had even blinded eminent scientific men, only appear to 

 die away during the last decades of the nineteenth century." This 

 statement remains in the last edition of his book (1906), in which are 

 recounted the discoveries of radioactive bodies and the transformations 

 of the emanation coming from those unique substances. 



We are well aware that the problem of transmutation of the ele- 

 ments is not solely of academic interest from the legends, courageous, 

 tragic, fantastic, ludicrous or iniquitous, that have been handed down. 

 Motives characterized by harsher terms than selfishness are usually 

 attributed these days to those who apply themselves to changing the 



1 Read before the New York Section of the American Chemical Society, 

 October 11, 1907. 



2 See Baudrimont, " Traite de Chimie," Paris, 1844. 



3 See " Introduction a une Chimie Unitaire," Paris, 1895. 



4 Archives des Sciences Physiques et Naturelles, 17, 5; Chemical News, 

 56, 39. 



6 Page G4; see also Kopp's, ''Die Alchemie in alterer und neuerer Zeit." 



