March 7, 1913] 



SCIENCE 



361 



and Mr. Patterson described some experi- 

 ments which they regard as proving the 

 transmutation of other elements into 

 helium and neon. I have been making 

 experiments of a somewhat similar char- 

 acter for some time, and though the inves- 

 tigation is not yet finished, the results I 

 have obtained up to the present time seem 

 to me in favor of a different explanation 

 from that put forward at the Chemical 

 Society. I described some of these experi- 

 ments in a lecture at the Royal Institution 

 on January 17, but as the separate copies 

 of that lecture have not yet been issued, I 

 will give here an account of some of the 

 experiments which seem to me to have the 

 most direct bearing on the phenomenon in 

 question. 



I used the method of positive rays to 

 detect the gases ; this method is more sensi- 

 tive than spectrum analysis, and furnishes 

 much more definite information. I may 

 say that the primary object of my experi- 

 ments was to investigate the origin and 

 properties of a new gas of atomic weight 3, 

 which I shall call Xg, which I discovered 

 by the positive-ray method. This gas, as 

 well as one with an atomic weight 20 

 (neon?), has appeared sporadically on the 

 photographs taken in the course of the last 

 two years; the discharge in the tube being 

 the ordinary discharge produced by an in- 

 duction coil through a large bulb furnished 

 with aluminium terminals, and containing 

 gas at a very low pressure. There seems to 

 be no obvious connection between the ap- 

 pearance of either of these lines and the 

 nature of the gas used to fill the tube ; the 

 3 line has appeared when the bulb was filled 

 with hydrogen, with nitrogen, with air, 

 with helium, or with mixtures of hydrogen 

 and oxygen in various proportions; the 20 

 line when the bulb contained hydrogen, 

 nitrogen, air, hydrochloric acid gas, mix- 

 tures of hydrogen and oxygen. 



The experiments I made had for their 

 object the discovery of the circumstances 

 which favor the production of X,, and to 

 test whether it was triatomic hydrogen pro- 

 duced by the discharge, as this is the alter- 

 native to its being a new element. I have 

 found that the conditions which lead to a 

 considerable production of X^ generally 

 give rise to the appearance of helium and 

 neon. Indeed, in the great majority of 

 cases in which I have observed the appear- 

 ance of traces of helium and neon these 

 gases have been accompajaied by larger 

 quantities of Xg ; this gas seems to have 

 escaped the notice of the readers of the 

 paper at the Chemical Society. I may 

 mention, too, that along with neon of 

 atomic weight 20 there is a line in these 

 circumstances corresponding to an atomic 

 weight 10 or thereabouts. Though this is 

 probably due to neon with two charges of 

 electricity, it is generally brighter in com- 

 parison with the neon line than is usual 

 for the lines corresponding to doubly and 

 singly charged atoms, so that it is not im- 

 possible, though perhaps unlikely, that it 

 may be due to a new gas. 



The positive rays for the analysis of the 

 gases were produced in a vessel containing 

 gases at a low pressure. I shall call this 

 the testing vessel; the vessel in which the 

 various processes for generating X3 were 

 tried (the experimenting chamber) was 

 sealed on to the testing vessel, but separated 

 from it by a tap. Thus the pressure in the 

 experimenting chamber was not restricted 

 to being the same as that in tlie testing 

 vessel, but might have the value which 

 seemed most appropriate for any jDartic- 

 ular type of experiment. After these ex- 

 periments were over, the tap was turned 

 and some of the gases from the experiment- 

 ing chamber let into the testing vessel; a 

 photograph was then taken, and by com- 

 paring it with one taken before turning the 



