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177
The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry
·
M. M. Pattison Muir
169
The
minute
particles
of
two
of
the
substances
for
many
years
classed
as
elements
give
off
electrons;
uranium
and
thorium
are
radio-active.
Electrons
are
produced
by
sending
an
electric
discharge
through
very
small
traces
of
different
gases,
using
electrodes
of
different
metals.
Electrons
are
also
produced
by
exposing
various
metals
to
the
action
of
ultra-violet
light,
and
by
raising
the
temperature
of
various
metals
to
incandescence.
Electrons
are
always
identical,
whatever
be
their
source.
Three
questions
suggest
themselves.
Can
the
atoms
of
all
the
elements
be
caused
to
give
off
electrons?
Are
electrons
normal
constituents
of
all
elementary
atoms?
Are
elementary
atoms
collocations
of
electrons?
These
questions
are
included
in
the
demand--Is
it
possible
"to
imagine
a
model
which
has
in
it
the
potentiality
of
explaining"
radio-activity
and
other
allied
phenomena,
as
well
as
all
other
chemical
and
physical
properties
of
elements
and
compounds?
These
questions
are
answerable
by
experimental
investigation,
and
only
by
experimental
investigation.
If
experimental
inquiry
leads
to
affirmative
answers
to
the
questions,
we
shall
have
to
think
of
atoms
as
structures
of
particles
much
lighter
than
themselves;
we
shall
have
to
think
of
the
atoms
of
all
kinds
of
substances,
however
much
the
substances
differ
chemically
and
physically,
as
collocations
of
identical
particles;
we
shall
have
to
think
of
the
properties
of
atoms
as
conditioned,
in
our
final
analysis,
by
the
number
and
the
arrangement
of
their
constitutive
electrons.
Now,
if
a
large
probability
were
established
in
favour
of
the
view
that
different
atoms
are
collocations
of
different
numbers
of
identical
particles,
or
of
equal
numbers
of
differently
arranged
identical
particles,
we
should
have
a
guide
which
might
lead
to
methods
whereby
one
collocation
of
particles
could
be
formed
from
another
collocation
of
the
same
particles,
a
guide
which
might
lead
to
methods
whereby
one
element
could
be
transformed
into
another
element.
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