
INORGANIC EVOLUTION 17 
ultimate product, or, at least, one of the ultimate 
products of the disintegration of the atom of 
emanation. Another radio-active element, actinium, 
has been shown by its discoverer Debierne also to 
yield helium by the disintegration of the emanation, 
or gas, which it continuously evolves.” 
Here, then, we have actual proof of transmutation— 
a realisation to some extent of the dreams of the 
alchemists—in the resolution of radium and actinium 
into their emanation, and of these emanations into 
helium: a gas originally discovered in the chromo- 
sphere of the sun, and, after twenty-eight years, 
found on earth as a product extracted from cleveite, 
an ore of uranium in which it is always to be found. 
_ In addition, helium is now known to exist in many 
of the stars: namely in Capella, Arcturus, Pollux, 
Sirius, and Vega. 
The disruptive changes occurring in the atoms 
of radium and actinium are explosions, and, as Sir 
William Ramsay says, “in principle an analogy 
may be drawn between the disruption of the 
molecules of an explosive compound and the dis- 
integration of an atom into corpuscles.” All 
ordinary explosions are known to be associated with 
a rise in temperature, and as such a process seems 
to be continuously going on in some of the atoms 
of radium, we have in this fact alone a partial ex- 
planation of the spontaneous production of heat in 
radium, which caused so much surprise among 
chemists and physicists when it was first made 
known. 
How far similar disruptive changes are taking 
B 
