SIR WILLIAM EAMSAY MOUREU. 541 
of dogmas ? Since the time of the alchemists no one has believed in 
transmutation. Transmutation was the most extravagant of Utopias. 
And yet to-day, but a few years later, who doubts that the atom has 
contradicted its etymology and disowned its name? Who doubts 
that the atom of radium disintegrates spontaneously and that the 
emanation and helium are the products of this disintegration ? Who 
doubts that there is a complete genealogy of radium, going from 
uranium to lead, and that the differences in mass are due definitely 
to the expulsion of particles of helium gas thrown out like ballast 
in order to lighten the atoms for the beginning of a new existence? 
Who doubts finally, since the beautiful work of Sir J. J. Thomson, 
Sir E. Rutherford, and some other physicists, that the atom with its 
electrons and other constituent elements, is a very complicated 
organism, in fact, an entire world? It is no use for people to erect 
barriers between the known and the unknown; they will fall 
some day under the continuous pressure of original research; and 
happily there are many that have already thus been overturned on 
the paths of science. 
The discovery of Ramsay and Soddy was not slow in being taken 
up ; the formation of helium was demonstrated as coming from acti- 
nium by Debierne, from thorium and uranium by Soddy, from polo- 
nium by Mme. Curie and Debierne, and from ionium by Boltwood. 
It is fitting to recall, before leaving this subject, that Rutherford 
had previously expressed the idea that the particles " given off by the 
radioactive elements ought to be made up of atoms of helium." 
This destruction of radioactive atoms, in which Ramsay was the 
first to see born helium atoms, had the effect of liberating an enormous 
quantity of energy, capable of effecting immediately varied chemical 
reactions — the breaking up of water, of carbonic gas, of hydrochloric 
acid gas, of ammonia gas, of the substance of glass, etc. The emana- 
tion from radium, in its disintegration, gives off for each cubic centi- 
meter a quantity of heat equal to that furnished by the explosion of 
3-^ cubic meters of the explosive mixture of oxygen and hydrogen 
gases. Ramsay supposed that if a sufficient amount of emanation of 
radium was put in actual contact with atoms, the energy liberated by 
the decomposition of the emanation would be able to break off some 
of them. In common with Cameron, he announced that he had thus 
obtained lithium, starting with copper, and carbon, starting with 
thorium and other elements of the same group. There has been and 
still is a great deal of skepticism regarding these transmutations. 
Mme. Curie and Mile. Gledisch having repeated the experiments 
with copper, the results were negative. On the other hand, Ramsay 
carried out experiments without the use of emanation and they gave 
no trace of lithium. Continued researches ought to settle the debate. 
