388 RECORD OF SCIENCE FOR 1886. 



A study of a special method of illustrating the periodic law, proposed 

 by Prof. Emerson Reynolds, leads ]\Ir. (Jrookes to a theory of the genesis 

 of the elements. 



He supposes in the very beginnings of time, before geological ages, 

 the existence of a primordial matter, which he names protyle{-f>o and OXt)). 

 He imagines a " primal stage, before even the sun himself had consol- 

 idated from the original protyle, when all was in an ultra-gaseous state, 

 at a temperature inconceivably hotter than anything now existing in 

 the visible universe; so high, indeed, that the chemical atoms could not 

 have been formed, being still far above their dissociation points. In the 

 course of time some process akin to cooling, probably internal, reduces 

 the temperature of the cosmic protyle to a point at which the first step 

 in granulation takes place — matter, as we know it, comes into existence, 

 and atoms are formed. As soon as an atom is formed out of protyle it 

 is a store of energy potential and kinetic. To obtain this energy the 

 neighboring protyle must be refrigerated by it, and thereby the subse- 

 quent formation of other atoms will be accelerated. But with atomic 

 matter the various forms of energy which require matter to render them 

 evident begin to act; and amongst others that form of energy which 

 has for one of its factors what we now call atomic weight. The easiest 

 formed element, the one most nearly allied to the protyle in simplicity, 

 is first born. Hydrogen (or perhaps helium), of all the known elements 

 the one of simplest structure and lowest atomic weight, is the first to 

 come into being. For some time hj'drogeu would be the only form of 

 matter (as we now know it) in existence, and between hydrogen and the 

 next formed element there would be a considerable gap in time, during 

 the latter part of which the element next in order of simplicity would 

 be slowly approaching its birth point. Pending this period we may sup- 

 pose that the evolutionary process, which soon was to determine the 

 birth of a new element, would also determine its atomic weight, its af- 

 finities, and its chemical position." 



Space at our command forbids our following the author further in his 

 sketch of the genesis of the elements. The application of radiant-mat- 

 ter spectra to the theory is a weight}' contribution to the ingenious 

 argument so interestingly portrayed, and one which the author alone is 

 qualified to advance. (l!Tature, xxxiv, 423.) 



. Valency and the Electrical Charge on the Atom, by A. P. Laurie. — The 

 author points out the bearing of the facts of electrolysis on the true 

 nature of valency. Helmholtz has shown that it follows from Faraday's 

 experiments on electrolysis, that while a monovalent atom carries to the 

 electrode one charge of electricity, a divalent atom carries two charges 

 of electricity; in other words, electrolysis proves that differences of 

 valency mean differences in the electrical charge on the atom. The au- 

 thor remarks that many elements vary in valency ; copper, for instance, 

 forms two very unUlje series of conipouuds* one in which it is mouova- 



