Manchester Memoirs, Vol. li. (1906), No. 2. 9 



free state during these changes, we are confronted with 

 the fact that both bromine and radium are indirectly 

 and simultaneously transformed into helium. Again, 

 Himstedt and Meyer 1 in their first experiments on the 

 formation of helium from the radium emanation employed 

 the sulphate, heated to a bright red heat in an exhausted 

 quartz tube, which showed the red, yellow, green, and 

 blue lines at the end of three weeks, increasing in bright- 

 ness the following fortnight. Hence, we have the trans- 

 formation of sulphur and oxygen into helium, as in the 

 instance of bromine into helium from the bromide 

 emanation. Moreover, as the transformations of three of 

 the eight members of the electro-negative series of 

 elements into helium have been effected, there is reason 

 for assuming that the radium combinations of the other 

 five members may also be transformed into helium, or 

 ultimately into hydrogen. 



A great hindrance to investigators of radio-trans- 

 formation products through their blind adoption of 

 periodic systems, is the notion that the higher members of 

 different series of elements may be transformed directly 

 into each other, viz., uranium into thorium or into radium. 

 These investigators might derive profit by comparing the 

 natural series of elements in my tables with the analogous 

 diagram in connexion with Chapter 4 of Darwin's "Origin 

 of Species." No naturalist would entertain for a moment 

 the notion of the transformation of a high member of one 

 species into a high member of another species, e.g., a tiger 

 into a giraffe, except by reversion in continuity to the 

 original type. It would be necessary to revert to the age 

 of the Greek mythologists and to the writings of the 

 alchemists for precedents for the belief in the direct 

 1 Ann. d. Physik, 15, 1, Sept., 1904. 



