360 
Calehaqui territory, which rather points to 
Aymara or Kechua affinities as undoubt- 
edly to the arts of this extinct population. 
D. G. Brinton. 
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
NOTES ON INORGANIC CHEMISTRY. 
MODERN ALCHEMY. 
Dr. H. Carrineton Boxron contributes 
to the last Chemical News an article entitled 
‘Recent Progress of Alchemy in America,’ 
It is largely devoted to such details as are 
known of the claims of Dr. Stephen H. 
Emmens, of New York, and of Edward C. 
Brice, of Chicago, together with the Mint 
Report on the Brice process. Dr. Emmens 
is the inventor of the high explosive Em- 
mensite, and the author of the ‘Argentau- 
rum Papers.’ It is perhaps worth while to 
give a brief abstract of his claims, taken 
from his own publications. He states that 
he was led to his present study by the in- 
vestigation in 1892, at the instance of Com- 
modore Folger, of a specimen of rustless 
nickel steel, which it was proposed to use 
for torpedo netting. He says that he found 
in both nickel and iron, and subsequently 
in cobalt, ‘a certain product which seemed 
to differ from anything recorded in the text 
books.’ Inferring that, if such a substance 
were found common to the metals of the 
fourth series of Mendeléeff’s group eight, 
similar results would be found in other 
groups, he began the study of gold and 
silver. ‘By certain physical methods and 
by the aid of certain apparatus’ he claims 
to have succeeded in bringing about an ex- 
tremely minute subdivision of silver, and 
was ‘surprised to find that the substance 
obtained differed so far from ordinary silver 
that it could no longer be regarded as the 
same elementary substance.’ His alleged 
substance, which he calls argentawrum, sym- 
bol Ar, he considers to be the missing ele- 
ment between silver and gold in the second 
subdivision of Mendéeleft’s group two. ‘‘Ar- 
SCIENCE. 
[N. S. Vou. VI. No. 140. 
gentaurum can be aggregated into molecules 
having a density considerably superior to 
that of silver molecules, and, we think, 
identical with that of ordinary gold mole- 
cules. Whether we are right as to this or 
not, the condensed argentaurum presents 
the appearance and is endowed with the 
properties of ordinary metallic gold.” Dr. 
Emmens estimates that ‘one ounce of silver 
will produce three quarters of an ounce of 
gold’ at a profit of at least three dollars an 
ounce. He operates on Mexican dollars, 
and has sold to the U. S. assay office six 
ingots of an alloy of silver and gold aggre- 
gating in value $954.80. Dr. Emmens re- 
marks: ‘The gold-producing work in our 
argentaurum laboratory is a case of sheer 
mammon seeking; it is not being carried on 
for the sake of science, or in a proselytizing 
spirit ; no disciples are desired and no be- 
lievers are asked for. I have every confi- 
dence that the production of argentaurum 
gold will be brought up to 50,000 ounces 
monthly within a year.’”’ Should this re- 
sult be attained, the problem of bimetallism 
will be happily solved. 
REGARDING the Brice process, three goy- 
ernment experts worked for three weeks 
under Mr. Brice’s direction, and officially 
report: ‘‘ We have seen not the slightest ev- 
idence of any ‘creation’ or transmutation. 
On the contrary, the claimant failed in 
every instance to recover the entire amount 
of silver and gold known to be present in 
the materials. The claimant seems to have 
devised a variety of irrational and wasteful 
methods for recovering a portion of the 
silver and gold known to metallurgists as 
being present in many commercial metals, 
such as antimony and lead.”” Mr. Brice’s ap- 
plication for a patent has been again re- 
jected. Incidentally, the assay office in- 
vestigation revealed that commercial anti- 
mony contains a very small percentage of 
gold, which is recovered by the Brice pro- 
cess. 
