1887.] on Genesis of the Elements. 69 



we descend the scale the affinities become feebler and the chemism 

 grows more and more sluggish. In part this change may be due to 

 the circumstance that the elements generated at a reduced tempera- 

 ture no longer possess great molecular mobility. But it is also ex- 

 tremely probable that the chemism-forming energy is itself dying 

 out like the fires of the cosmic furnace. I have attempted to sym- 

 bolise this gradual fading by a decrease in the amplitude of 

 vibration. 



The figures representing the scale of atomic weights may be sup- 

 posed to represent, inversely, the scale of a gigantic pyrometer 

 plunged into a cauldron where the elements of suns and worlds are 

 undergoing formation. As the heat sinks, the elements generated 

 increase in density and atomic weight. Below the formation-point 

 of uranium the temj^erature will probably i3ermit of the earlier-born 

 elements forming combinations among themselves, and we shall 

 witness, e. g. the birth of water, and the formation of those known 

 compounds the dissociation of which is not beyond the powers of our 

 terrestrial sources of heat. 



Turning to the upper portion of the diagram we see that there is 

 little room for elements of a lower atomic weight than hydrogen. 

 But let us pass " through the looking-glass " and cross the zero line. 

 What shall we find on the other side ? Dr. Carnelley asks for an 

 element of negative atomic weighf ; and here is ample room and 

 verge enough for a shadow series of such unsubstantialities, leading, 

 perhaps, to that " Unseen Universe " which two eminent physicists 

 have discussed. Helmholtz says that electricity is probably as 

 atomic as matter ;* is electricity one of the negative elements ? and 

 the luminiferous ether another ? Matter, as we now know it, does 

 not here exist ; and the forms of energy which are aj^parent in the 

 motions of matter are as yet only latent possibilities. 



A genesis of the elements such as is here sketched would not be 

 confined to our little solar system, but would probably follow the 

 same general sequence of events in every centre of energy now visible 

 as a star. 



It may be said that so far I have proved nothing. But I may 

 submit that at least I have shown the improbability of the per- 

 sistence of the ultimate character, and the eternal self-existence, the 

 fortuitous origin, and the simultaneous creation of the elements. 

 The analogy of these elements with the organic radicles, and still 

 more with living organisms, constrains us to suspect that they are 

 compound bodies, springing from a process of evolution. We have 

 drawn corroborative evidence from the distribution and the associa- 

 tion of the rare earths, evidence which seems to be converging to the 



* " If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed 

 of atoms, we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as 

 negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms 

 of electricity."— Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881. 



