Alchemy: ancient and modern : being a brief account of the alchemistic doctrines, and their relations, to mysticism on the one hand, and to recent discoveries in physical science on the other hand ; together with some particulars regarding the lives and teachings of the most noted alchemists / by H. Stanley Redgrove.

  • Redgrove, H. Stanley (Herbert Stanley), 1887-1943.
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Alchemy: ancient and modern : being a brief account of the alchemistic doctrines, and their relations, to mysticism on the one hand, and to recent discoveries in physical science on the other hand ; together with some particulars regarding the lives and teachings of the most noted alchemists / by H. Stanley Redgrove. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    184/198 (page 132)
    on water. Out of five experiments no neon was obtained, save in one case in which a small air leak was discovered ; and, since the authors find that very minute quantities of this gas are sufficient to give a clearly visible spectrum, they conclude that Ramsay’s positive results are due, after all, to leakage of air into the apparatus. But if this explanation be accepted it is difficult to understand why the presence of neon should be observed in the experiments with water, and argon in the experiments with copper solutions (see below, § 98). We are inclined, therefore, to accept Sir William Ramsay’s results, but it is quite evident that further experiments are necessary to settle the question indisputably. § 98. The fact that an excess of hydrogen was pro¬ duced when water was decomposed by the emanation suggested to Sir William Ramsay and Ramsay’s Mr, Cameron that if a solution of a ^^Copper^ metahic salt was employed in place of pure water, the free metal might be obtained. These “modern alchemists,” therefore, proceeded to investigate the action of radium emana¬ tion on solutions of copper and lead salts, and again apparently effected transmutations. They found on removing the copper from a solution of a copper-salt which had been subjected to the action of the emana¬ tion, and spectroscopically examining the residue, that a considerable quantity of sodium was present, together with traces of lithium; and the gas evolved in the case of a solution of copper nitrate contained, along with much nitric oxide and a little nitrogen, argon (which was detected spectroscopically), but no helium. It certainly seemed like a dual transformation of