SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. w] 



motion — the uniformity and intensity of this motion giving to them the 

 quality of rigidity, stability, elasticity, and impentrability, which was 

 formerly supposed to characterize the chemical atom. 



Stress in the magnetic field, or violent impact, or intense heat, 

 may cause one of these electrons to leap from among its fellows in 

 the previously stable atom, and then, electrical equilibrium being de- 

 stroyed, turmoil and confusion prevail in the ranks of the remaining 

 electrons, and disruption, explosion, and atomic disintegration, ensue. 



What a sublime thought is embodied in the contemplation of this 

 miniature catastrophe. We may liken the vortex of whirling ions 

 in this atom to the orderly movements of the planets in' the solar 

 system, each ion, like each planet, satellite, or comet, performing its 

 revolution in its prescribed course and in its appointed time, in accord- 

 ance with inflexible law. 



A foreign atom, or perhaps a fugitive electron, dashes with corpus- 

 cular velocity against the periphery of the vortex, but with force 

 enough to destroy the harmony of this miniature solar system, and 

 one after another of the revolving electrons, deprived of its centripetal 

 governor, breaks from its control, and flies off into space. It may be 

 absorbed by your body, or bj^ the foliage of the tree over your head, 

 or by the vapor of a passing cloud, or, eluding all these sublunary 

 objects, it may dart out into the infinite depths of the universe towards 

 some distant star or nebula, for our sun cannot even slacken its amazing 

 speed, or it may wander for uncounted eons in the black and vacant 

 chambers of unoccupied space. 



Radium has the peculiar property of rendering adjacent bodies 

 of whatever nature, temporarily radio-active. You are aware that a 

 steel magnet renders other bars of iron magnetic by coming into tem- 

 porary contact with them. Here is an analogous property in radium 

 but with a more universal application. 



Thus we have seen that atoms can be split into parts— that ions, 

 or electrons, are such parts— and that these parts are carriers of elec- 

 tricity. Or possibly, electricity itself consists of these fractured atoms, 

 fiying with inconceivable velocity and force, but moving in accordance 

 with immutable laws wh'ich may be studied, recognized, and controlled 

 for uses of man. 



And now the question arises: If atoms are thus complex, if each of 

 these extremely minute particles of matter is not indestructible and 

 indivisible, but can be broken into infinitely minuter particles, each 

 endowed with amazing projectile force, is it not possible that the 

 so-called elementary substances— hydrogen, carbon, iron, gold, and the 

 like— are not simple and distinct in their essence, but are, in their 

 ultimate forms, reducible to a common and universal element? 



This opens up a broad and fruitful field of speculation, and we 

 must speculate before we can generalize. Out of this mental process of 

 speculation comes a working hypothesis from which we establish a 

 theory that fits all the facts in the case. Speculation, generalization, 

 hypothesis, theory, are the successive stages. But in each_ stage of 

 inquiry imagination, that wonderful faculty of the human mind, plays 

 a master part. 



Sir Oliver Lodge recently said: "Here, then, we appear to have, in 

 embryo, a transmutation of the elements, the possibility of which has 

 for so long been the guess and the desire of the alchemists. Whether 

 the progress of research will confirm this hypothesis, and whether any 

 of the series of substances so produced are already familiarly known to 

 us in ordinary chemistry, remains to be seen. It is not in the leas'., 

 likelv that any one radio-aciive substance can furnish in its stages 



