OLD AND NEW ALCHEMY 269 



strangely led to reoccupy some of the abandoned strong- 

 holds of the discredited horde of alchemists. We can see 

 now that they were groping toward half-truths. And 

 their instinct in selecting lead and mercury as initial forms 

 of matter was so far right that both have atomic weights 

 higher than those of gold and silver. But they erred hope- 

 lessly in pitting their feeble artifices against the imper- 

 turbable stability, measured on our time scale, of the 

 created world. Irretrievable disaster and delusion could 

 not but ensue from their attempts to control the uncontrol- 

 lable, and to exploit inaccessible treasure stores. We know 

 better. Radio-activity is the least manageable of natural 

 processes. It will not be interfered with. We can only 

 look on in wonder while it deploys its irresistible unknown 

 forces. They reveal latent possibilities of mechanical power 

 fabulous in amount, and within, it might be said, a hand's 

 breadth of being industrially available; yet we are pre- 

 cluded from their employment. 1 Base metals, we suspect 

 with reason, are continually becoming ennobled; but the 

 gates of the half -seen Eldorado remain closed. Will they 

 remain closed forever ? That is an unread enigma. Should 

 human ingenuity find means, in the future, to fling them 

 wide, the newer alchemy will far outbid the promises of the 

 old, and will cap its illusory performances with as yet 

 unimaginable realities. Their accomplishment, however, 

 will consist not in the lavish production of silver and gold, 

 but in the subjugation of the untold energy accumulated 

 at the beginning of the world in complex atomic systems. 

 Nature here sits entrenched in her last fastness. The more 

 sanguine among us anticipate its reduction. Others be- 

 lieve it to be impregnable. The forces that hold it will cer- 

 tainly not capitulate soon or easily. The siege must be 

 prolonged and difficult; the issue is doubtful. 



*See Professor Rutherford's article "Radium the Cause of the 

 Earth's Heat" in Harper's Monthly for Feb. 1905, 



