RADIUM AND ITS PRODUCTS 191 



radium, and further experiments in this direction will be 

 eagerly welcomed. 1 



Lastly, the experiments of Ramsay and Cook, of 

 which an account has been given, on the action of the 

 /3-rays appear to foreshadow results of importance. 

 For while radium, during its spontaneous change, parts 

 with a relatively enormous amount of energy, largely 

 in the form of heat, it is a legitimate inference that 

 if the atoms of ordinary elements could be made to 

 absorb energy, they would undergo change of a con- 

 structive and not of a disruptive, nature. If, as looks 

 probable, the action of /3-rays, themselves the con- 

 veyers of enormous energy, on such matter as glass, 

 is to build up atoms which are radioactive, and con- 

 sequently of high atomic weight ; and if it be found that 

 the particular matter produced depends on the element 

 on which the /3-rays fall, and to which they impart their 

 energy : if these hypotheses are just, then the transmuta- 

 tion of elements no longer appears an idle dream. The 

 philosopher's stone will have been discovered, and it is 

 not beyond the bounds of possibility that it may lead to 

 that other goal of the philosophers of the dark ages the 

 elixir vitce. For the action of living cells is also dependent 

 on the nature and direction of the energy which they 

 contain; and who can say that it will be impossible to 

 control their action, when the means of imparting and 

 controlling energy shall have been investigated ? 



1 There appears to be an intermediate product to which the name 

 ' ionium ' has been given by Boltwood, its discoverer. 



