562 TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. 



whilst a fall 114 the pressure or a fall in the degree of humidity produces an 

 increase in the percentage of the CO, in the exhaled air. 



Different individuals exhale air having different ranges as regards the per- 

 centage of C0 2 . Thus one man. W. W. (38), breathing Manchester air under 

 normal conditions gave between 3-7 and 4*3 per cent. C0 2 ; N. T. F. (21) from 

 36 to 4-3; I. W. (22) 5"4 to 62 ; and B. S. (a boy of 14), from 42 to 53. 



Experiments were also made with guinea pigs and with mice. These were put 

 under a bell-jar, fresh air being led in at the top and withdrawn from the 

 bottom, the air being passed finally through a delicate gas-meter by means of a 

 water vacuum pump. The air passed through a litre bottle before and after 

 leaving the bell- jar. The C0 2 were determined in each by baryta water (standard 

 solution). Generally speaking the same rises and falls in the grammes of CO, 

 per kilo, weight of animal were obtained from them as from ourselves when they 

 were under similar atmospheric conditions. The higher the temperature of the 

 air the lower the percentage of C0 2 in Lire exhaled air, and vice versa. 



Joint Discussion with Section L on the Neglect of Science by Industry 

 and Commerce. 1 — Opened by R. Blair. 



TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6. 

 First Division. 



The following Papers and Report were read : — 

 1. On a Fourth Recalescence in Steel. By Professor J. 0. Aenold. 



2. Allotropy or Transmutation ? By Professor Henry M. Howe, LL.D. 



If after defining ' elements ' as substances hitherto indivisible, and different 

 elements as those which differ in any one property, and after asserting 

 that the elements cannot be transmuted into each other, we are confronted with 

 the change from diamond into lampblack, and with the facts, first, that each is 

 clearly indivisible hitherto and hence an element, and, second, that they differ in 

 every property, we try to escape in a circle by saying that they are not different 

 elements because they do change into each other. In short, we limit the name 

 'element' to indivisible substances which cannot be transmuted into each other, 

 and we define those which do transmute as ipso facto one element, and then we 

 say that the elements cannot be transmuted. Is not this very like saying that, 

 if you call a calf's tail a leg, then a calf has five legs? And if it is just to reply 

 that calling a tail a leg does not make it a leg, is it not equally just to reply 

 that calling two transmutable elements one element does not make them so ? 



Is the fact that two such transmutable elements yield but a single line of 

 derivatives really proof that they are one element? Is not this rather proof of 

 the readiness, indeed irresistibleness, of their transmutation? Does not this 

 simply mean that the derivativeless element, whenever it enters into combination, 

 solution, or the gaseous state, inevitably transmutes into the one which has 

 derivatives? Does not the theory that a given change is allotropy rather than 

 transmutation need further and more conclusive evidence before it can be taken as 

 proved ? 



We have become so accustomed to the present point of view that it seems to 

 us second nature ; but, if we look frankly at it, is it a tenable or philosophical 

 point of view ? 



This question is not without a practical application. If, instead of saying 

 ' The elements cannot be transmuted into each other,' we were to say ' Hitherto 

 no elements have been transmuted into each other except those which transmute 

 so readily that the derivatives of only one of them have been recognised,' we 

 should take a point of view from which the transmutation of, say, copper into 

 lithium ceases to be so improbable antecedently as to call for extraordinarily 

 conclusive evidence. 



1 See The School World, October 1910. 



