MIRACLES OF SCIENCE 



heavy, and neon twenty times as heavy. At first 

 glance, therefore, it would appear that the experi- 

 menters have been able, with the use of the electric 

 current, either to cause hydrogen atoms to combine 

 to produce heavier substances, or else have actually 

 built up new elements out of electrons; or at the 

 very least have caused helium to combine with oxy- 

 gen from the glass walls of the bulb to form neon. 



This would be a very wonderful transformation 

 indeed, but it chances that the phenomena are sus- 

 ceptible of much less startling interpretation. Sir 

 J. J. Thomson, the foremost authority on the subject, 

 suggests that what has actually taken place is the 

 jdriving out by the passage of the electric current of 

 a certain number of molecules of helium and neon 

 that were occluded in the platinum of the electrode. 

 Professor Thomson had himself observed the pro- 

 duction under similar circumstances of a new sub- 

 stance apparently having the atomic weight three, 

 which could be explained either as a new element or 

 as a new type of molecule composed of three hydro- 

 gen atoms. The possibility of the occlusion of alien 

 molecules between the molecules of metals is fairly 

 established. 



Meantime, however, the possibility must not be 

 overlooked that the elements neon and helium were 

 actually driven out from the atomic substance of the 

 plantinum electrode, or of the glass walls of the bulb, 

 and if such were indeed the fact the experiment 

 would have the very greatest importance. It would 

 be demonstrated that it is possible by a means avail- 

 able in the laboratory to disrupt the atoms of a non- 

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