12 On Isomeric Transmutation, and the Nature of 



ments united in the same proportion."* After some incidental 

 remarks, he continues, " It may be, however, that the patient 

 study and pursuit of the kindred classes of phenomena we have 

 been considering, shall, in some brighter moment, shew that 

 substances considered elementary are yet mutually convertible 

 without decomposition ;" and, again, " It may be, indeed, that 

 all our supposed elementary bodies are in reality such, and 

 therefore wholly beyond the resolving energy of electricity, 

 or any other agent ; and yet the study of their changes and 

 reactions in the laboratory, in conformity, perhaps, with new 

 views or modes of investigation, may, at some future period, 

 so enlarge our dominion over the molecules, as shall cause 

 them, at our bidding, to assume this or that arrangement — to 

 appear with the properties of chlorine or iodine, of cobalt or 

 nickel, of rhodium, iridium, or osmium."t Professor John- 

 ston's view, it will be observed, is a wider one than Dr 

 Brown''s, inasmuch as it acknowledges a possible mutual con- 

 vertibility of the elementary bodies ; and, therefore, implies 

 that transmutation may proceed in both directions of the 

 atomic scale. Sulphur may become oxygen, as readily as oxygen 

 sulphur ; silicon carbon, as readily as carbon silicon ; gold 

 hydrogen, as hydrogen gold. Any one element, in short, may 

 become any other, whatever be their atomic weights. This 

 scheme might be termed, in opposition to Dr Brown's, a 

 method of elemental reduction by mutual isomeric transmu- 

 tation. 



Professor Kane"'s views are too slightly sketched, in his 

 work on Chemistry, to enable us to judge exactly in what way 

 he expects the elements to prove isomeric, and they were 

 certainly formed with a knowledge of what Professor John- 

 ston had written on the subject. But he has indicated, in a 

 way neither of the other chemists referred to have done, some 

 remarkable relations between the atomic weights of certain 

 of the metals, which would strikingly accord with either of 

 their theories of elemental isomerism. 



I do not offer any opinion as to the relative probability of 

 Dr Brown's and Professor Johnston's views ; but it is impos- 



* Report of British Association, vol. vi. p, 211. t ^^^'c?. p. 212. 



