NOTES. 



407 



These little fishes are, I believe, only known 

 in some parts of Siam and Burmah ; they 

 are small, not more than six or seven inches, 

 and in shape like a smelt. I am not aware 

 that I have ever seen any description of 

 them." 



"Are the Elements elementary?" — Mr. 



Norman Lockyer has realized the alche- 

 mist's dream, the transmutation of metals. 

 In the presence of a small party of scien- 

 tific men, Mr. Lockyer, by the aid of a pow- 

 erful voltaic current, volatilized copper 

 within a glass tube, dissolved the deposit 

 formed within the tube in hydrochloric acid, 

 and then showed, by means of the spectro- 

 scope, that the solution contained no longer 

 copper, but another metal, calcium, the base 

 of ordinary lime. The experiment was re- 

 peated with other metals and with corre- 

 sponding results. Nickel was thus changed 

 into cobalt, and calcium into strontium. All 

 these bodies, as is well known, have ever 

 been regarded as elementary — that is, as in- 

 capable of being resolved into any compo- 

 nents, or of being changed one into another. 

 It is on this basis that all modern chemistry 

 is founded, and, should Mr. Lockyer's dis- 

 covery bear the test of further trial, our 

 entire system of chemistry will require re- 

 vision. The future possibilities of the dis- 

 covery it is difficult to limit. The great ob- 

 ject of the old alchemists was, of course, to 

 transmute base metals into gold, and so far 

 as our knowledge goes there is no reason 

 why copper should not be changed into gold 

 as well as into calcium. The means at pres- 

 ent employed are obviously such as to ren- 

 der the process far more costly than any 

 possible results can be worth ; but this is 

 necessarily the case with most scientific dis- 

 coveries before they are turned into com- 

 mercial facts. Mr. Lockyer is one of our 

 best living spectroscopists, and no man with 

 a reputation such as his would risk the pub- 

 lication of so startling a 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 yesterday by 

 some of our leading chemists, all of whom 

 admitted that the results of his experiments 

 were inexplicable on any other grounds but 

 those admitting of the change of one ele- 



ment into another, unless indeed our whole 

 system of spectrum analysis is to be upset, 

 the other horn of a very awkward dilemma. 

 Since a hundred years ago Priestley discov- 

 ered oxygen and founded modern chemistry 

 there has been — there could be — no discov- 

 ery made which would have such an effect 

 on modern science as that the so-called ele- 

 ments were no longer to be considered ele- 

 mentary. — London Daily News. 



NOTES. 



A GOLD medal has been awarded to Mr. 

 Edward R. Andrews, of Boston, for his ex- 

 hibit of creosoted wood at the Exhibition 

 of the Mechanics' Charitable Association in 

 Boston. The article on the Teredo ncwalis, 

 by Prof, von Baumhauer, in the August and 

 September numbers of this journal, was 

 translated by Mr. Andrews. This paper 

 explains the merits of creosote-oil in pro- 

 tecting timber from destruction by marine 

 worms and insects. 



Concerning the manner of Mr. Thomas 

 Belt's death, the American Journal of Sci- 

 ence has the following information : "About 

 two weeks previous to his death Mr. Belt 

 had shown signs of insanity, and it was 

 thought best to remove him to New York. 

 Mr. Silas Lloyd, who had for a short time 

 been associated with him, accompanied him. 

 Just before arriving at Kansas City, Mr. 

 Lloyd had occasion to leave him for a few 

 minutes. On returning, he found the door 

 locked. Mr. Belt refused to let him in. and 

 commenced a furious onslaught on furni- 

 ture and car. Parties crawled through the 

 broken windows, and succeeded in pacifymg 

 him. Getting him oif the train, he was pre- 

 vailed upon to drink a glass of milk, and 

 about twenty minutes afterward be died." 



A NOTE was read in a recent meeting of 

 the Paris Academy of Sciences, from Mr. J. 

 Norman Lockyer, in which the author says 

 that he believes he has succeeded in prov- 

 ing that many of the " elements " are in 

 reality compound bodies. 



The L-on Age reports the discovery in 

 Franklin County, Pennsylvania, of very rich 

 deposits of copper, occurring in the form of 

 hydrous carbonate or malachite, containing 

 about seventy-two per cent, of copper oxide 

 or fifty-seven and a half per cent, of me- 

 tallic copper. Some of the deposits show- 

 even a higher percentage than this. 



A MONKEY in the Alexandra Palace, 

 London, had a decaying tooth, and suffered 

 from a large abscess in the lower jaw. It 



