December 27, 1907] 



SCIENCE 



9l>5 



given in the London Times he said that the 

 emanation, whether a compound or not, was 

 certainly endothermic; if left alone, it 

 changed and presumably decomposed with an 

 almost incredible evolution of heat. A ton of 

 it would boil away 200 pounds of water in an 

 hour, and would serve as efficient fuel to warm 

 a house, do all the cooking, and provide hot 

 baths for a large family, not only during their 

 own lives, but for about twenty generations, 

 without much falling oif. If the emanation 

 were dissolved in water it produced another 

 eflFect, also involving a loss of energy — it de- 

 composed the water into oxygen and hydrogen. 

 But in this way there was always produced a 

 small excess of hydrogen over that required to 

 combine with the oxygen. One hypothesis to 

 account for this excess was that hydrogen, too, 

 was one of the products of the decay of the 

 emanation, though on the whole that was un- 

 likely. At the same time, there was formed a 

 trace of dioxide of hydrogen, though not 

 enough, so far as he could judge, to account 

 for the excess entirely. Further, on removing 

 the oxygen and hydrogen, there was left neon, 

 another of the inactive atmosjDheric gases dis- 

 covered by himself and Dr. Travers in 1898. 

 With the hope of accounting for the excess of 

 hydrogen, he exposed a solution of sulphate 

 of copper to the action of the emanation ; the 

 gases evolved contained argon, but no recog- 

 nizable helium or neon. Some of the copper, 

 too, appeared to have changed, for the residue 

 of the liquid, after removing all copper from 

 it, contained a small trace of the element 

 lithium, a member of the sodium group, which 

 was easily recognized by its spectrum. It was 

 probable, though not yet proved, that the ele- 

 ment sodium was also a transmutation-product 

 of copper, because the residue, obtained by 

 evaporating the copper-solution, deprived of 

 copper, which had been treated with emana- 

 tion, was more than twice as heavy as that 

 obtained from untreated copper sulphate. It 

 must be explained that these solutions were 

 contained in glass bulbs, and that glass con- 

 tained silicate of sodium; experiments were 

 now in progress in which glass was excluded, 

 the bulb used being constructed of silica, free 

 from sodium. Now these results corroborated 



each other, in a certain fashion, and admitted 

 of a provisional theory. The emanation was 

 a very inactive gas, unattacked by any re- 

 agents. Now this was the characteristic of 

 the argon group alone — namely, helium, neon, 

 argon, krypton and xenon. Again, we knew 

 a similar series, though a longer one, the first 

 member of which was lithium and the second 

 sodium, to which copper, silver and gold also 

 belonged. It appeared possible, to say the 

 least, that the emanation degraded, split, was 

 transformed, or transmuted itself into helium, 

 neon or argon, all members of the same nat- 

 ural group, according to circumstances; and 

 that, similarly, copper might turn, under the 

 enormous influx of energy brought to bear on 

 its atoms, into lithium, sodium and potassium, 

 all of which had smaller atomic weights than 

 copper and all of which were usually classified 

 in the same chemical group. 



In 1906, for the second time, the total value 

 of the mineral production of the United 

 States exceeded the enormous sum of $1,.500,- 

 000,000. The exact figures for 1906 are $1,- 

 902,505,206 as compared with $1,623,928,720 in 

 1905, a gain of $278,576,486, or 17.15 per cent. 

 This great increase in the total value of our 

 mineral production is due to gains in both 

 metallic and nonmetallic products, the metal- 

 lic products showing an increase in value from 

 $702,453,101 in 1905 to $886,110,856 in 1906, a 

 gain of $183,657,755, and the nonmetallic 

 products showing an increase from $921,075,- 

 619 in 1905 to $1,016,194,350 in 1906, a gain of 

 $95,118,731. To these products should be 

 added estimated unfipecified products, inclu- 

 ding molybdenum, bismuth and other miner- 

 als, valued at $200,000. As heretofore, iron and 

 coal are our most important mineral products, 

 the value of the iron in 1906 being $505,700,- 

 000, and that of the coal $513,079,809. The 

 fuels increased from $602,257,548 in 1905 to 

 $652,398,476 in 1906, a gain of $50,148,298. 

 The values of the mineral products of the 

 United States in 1905 and 1906 are summar- 

 ized by Dr. William Taylor Thom, of the 

 United States Geological Survey, in an ad- 

 vance chapter from " Mineral Resources of 

 the United States, Calendar Year 1906," which 



