KELVIN 197 



The mutability of the elements by Ramsay is most 

 wonderful. He has found that the radium emanation 

 develops into helium, and when the same emanation is 

 passed through water it changes into neon. If it is 

 passed through a solution of a salt of copper, it resolves 

 itself into argon ; and when copper is acted upon by the 

 radium emanation it is converted into lithium ! Argon, 

 helium, radium, neon, krypton, and xenon are non-valent 

 elements, and as such have not the power of combining with 

 other elements. Thus they appear to be the wreck of the 

 material universe, which seems to be undergoing universal 

 dissolution. In the course of a thousand million years 

 one cannot say what the gold and silver, the copper and 

 lead, and much else of the solid structure of this globe 

 may have become. Another marvellous feature is the 

 unheard-of energies which these fragments of radium set 

 free in their break up. The powers of Nature in this 

 respect astonish us as much as its extent in space and 

 time. 



Whether Lord Kelvin could read the future or not 

 as to the drift of modern investigations on electrons and 

 emanation " it would be shallow to believe that such men 

 as Kelvin, with faculty quickened and outlook widened 

 in the high air to which their fame raises them, really 

 discerned no more than we, who have only their written 

 words for authority, can perceive that they discerned. 

 Great position often invests men with a second sight, 



