6 Wilde, Resolution of Elementary Substances. 



In my former papers read before the Society^ and in 

 a note which was presented to the French Academy of 

 Sciences,^ I have shown that heHum is the typical 

 element of the series H2n with an atomic weight of 2 

 (He = 2) ; a value now adopted by French chemists in the 

 Table of atomic weights published in the Annuaire du 

 Bureau des Longitudes. 



' In discussing the question of the transmutable nature 

 of the chemical elements at the end of my first paper 

 published in the Proceedings of the Society and in the 

 Chemical News in 1878, the following remarks occur 

 which are now of some interest. 



"The numerical relations of the atomic weights to 

 " which I have directed attention, and the brief outline of 

 " a theory of the origin of elementary species which I have 

 " founded upon them, give new force to the doctrine of the 

 "transmutable nature of elementary substances. But 

 " when the synthetical formation of organic compounds is 

 " regarded as the greatest triumph of modern chemical 

 " science, the problem of building up the higher elements 

 " from the lower may well be deemed insoluble, as they 

 " have been formed under cosmical conditions with which 

 " we have little or no acquaintance. Very different, 

 " however, is the aspect of the problem of resolving the 

 "higher elements of each series into their respective types 

 " or into hydrogen. For just as by the application of heat 

 " the higher members of homologous series are resolved, 

 "through their lower members, into their ultimates, so 

 " may it be expected that the elements themselves will, 

 " in their turn, give way to more powerful instruments of 

 " analysis." 



I have made many experiments in the direction above 



^ Mafichester Memoirs, Vol. XL., p. 3, 1895. Ibid., Vol. XLVI., 1902. 

 ^ Cornptes Reiidus, Tome 125, pp. 649, 707, 1897. 



