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THE ELEMENTS, AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS,

IN 1812, Michael Faraday, then a bookseller’s apprentice, attended the lectures of sir Humphrey Davy in the Royal Institution. Inspired
with scientific ardour and enthusiasm, and eager to
escape from the trammels of trade, the future savan
took the bold and simple step of writing to sir
Humphrey. We need not detail his future career;
suffice it to observe, that next year he became
Davy’s assistant at the institution, and subsequently his successor; having, by a series of splendid and beautiful chemical and electrical discoveries, taken a first place amongst the celebrities of
science. Our philosopher is now no less noted for
the lucidity and grace of his expositions than for
his deep pryings into natural mysteries. In time
course of his duties, professor Faraday delivered,
during the spring and summer of 1852, a course
of six lectures, etc., on the non-metallic elements, to
the members of the institution. These have recently been published; and while commending
them to our readers as one of the most delightful and instructive chemical hand-books in our language, we would direct attention to a marvellous
chemical phenomenon which is now attracting the
attention of philosophers.
However eage for notoriety, no dandy has yet
astonished us by appearing clothed in a dress that
can change from sober drab to brilliant green.
The chemical elements, nevertheless, have some
up
thing of this magical property; for recent discoveries prove that in nature the same substance
may be distinguished by distinctly opposite qualities, and may appear in the most diverse forms.
This phenomenon has been called “allotropism ;“
or, as far as the Greek words may literally be rendered, “ another state.” We have been accustomed
to think of the elements as resembling certain
gentlemen clothed in unchangeable black; now,
however, we may find them, according to circum
sprang
stances, in all the colours of the rainbow.
If an observer, provided with slips of bibulous
paper which has been dipped in a solution of iodide
of potassium and starch, ascend a hill near the sea,
whilst the wind is landward, lie will find that the
papers suddenly change their tint, becoming blue.
This indicates a new chemical agent in the atmosphere, called ozone by its discoverer, Professor
Shönbein of Bale, to whom we owe also gun-cot.
ton. If the breeze be from the land, and has travelled great tracts of country, the experiment will
probably fail, as ozone does not then show itself.
This new substance has also been found identical
with the peculiar odour called the electric smell,
given off by an electrical machine in action. But
strange as are some of its manifestations, professor Shönbein shows it to be no new element at all;
and to be, in fact, only oxygen, the chief of the elements, under a masked aspect. Chemists have
found our terraqueous globe made up of sixty-three
so-called simple elements; of these, thirteen are
most widely distributed, and of the latter again,
one—oxygen—composes about two-thirds of our
globe. It is present as a gas in our atmosphere:
we drink it liquid as water, and carry it about with
us as part of our nerves, our muscles, and our clothing; it feeds our blast-furnaces and quenches our
fi while v;sttores.of prrt and te
neighbour elements, we see how, though seemingly most unmanageable and discordant, they are
made to watch like ministering angels around us
each performing tranquilly its destined function
moving through all the various phases of decomposition, decay, and death; then springing into new
life and assuming fresh forms. Allotropism brings
out this in a most striking manner. The experisuffice
meuts by which we distinguish simple oxygen give
with ozonised oxygen very different results. Ozone
has a peculiar smell; oxygen none. Pour a blue
solution, a solution of sulphate of indioo, into
ozonised oxygen, and it is quickly bleaeed ; in
ordinary oxygen it remains unaltered. In ozonised
oxygen, the effiuvium of tainted meat is instantly
destroyed; and sheets of silver foil, which remain
unchanged in the ordinary gas, soon crumble into
dust—the oxide of silver. Our knowledge of this
mysterious substance has beeii too short to enable
us to assign it its true. place in the grand economy
of nature. Doubtless it accomplishes most import-
ant purposes. And though the speculations as to its connection with health and disease, and as
to its relations with certain great epidemics, both
in the human family and the vegetable kingdom,
are at present very wide and imperfect, busy savans are in this field anxiously toiling for more
positive information.
Many other bodies, besides oxygen, exhibit this
change of properties in different phases of condition. Common sulphur, when placed in a Florence
flaslc and heated to a certain point, fuses, and the
liquid produced by the fusion is a thin pellucid
body; applying more heat, it loses its transparency,
and becomes thick and blackens; at which juncture
the Florence flask may be inverted without the
liquid coming out. Heated still further, a vapour
given forth, and the sulphur again becomes
liquefied. Poured in this state into cold water,
the liquid is no longer yellow and brittle, but has
become a substance like India rubber or gutta
percha, on which seals and impressions may be
and are taken. In this condition it remains for
days, and even longer. Professor Shröetter, of
Berlin, lately astonished his friends by his temerity
in wrapping some sticks of phosphorus in paper,
and walking about with theni in his pocket. Ordinary phosphorus we keep in water, for fear of spontaneous combustion ; this, however, was allotropic
hosphorns. This discovery has been of the utmost
importance in connection with the arts, particularly
as regards lucifer-match making, for the vapours
of common phosphorus have a most prejudicial
effect on persons subjected to their influence. They
occasion a disease which corrodes, ulcerates, and
destroys the bones, even sometimes producing
death. Now, by the employment of allotropic
phosphorus, this may be prevented; while at
the caine time it serves all practical purposes
equally well with the ordinary description. Allotropism is thus no mere scientific nicety, but a trustful guardian of that which is of all earthly things most precious. Our next illustration of
this transformation of’ the elements is a pleasing
as well as pretty one. Let a sheet of paper, on
which has been painted a St. Andrew’s cross with
the red iodide of mercury, be heated, and the red-
ness will be immediately changed into yellow,
Another experiment, and perhaps the most con-
elusive, was performed by professor Faraday; but
this, we fear, few of our readers will be inclined
from its eNpense to make. A diamond held by
a little platinum clamp and ignited to whiteness
in the oxy-liydrogen flame, was plunged while
incandescent into a jar of oxygen. It was speedily
into gas, which, by means of the lime-
water test, was proved to be carbonic acid. it
is even so; the glistening gem which monarchs
after, and the black diamond which the
mitier disembowels far down below the surface,
are but modifications of one and the same sub-
yet how widely diverse in their practical
bearings on humanity I In the deep laboratories
of nature, during long ages, by unknown and mys-
terious processes, the wood of primeval forests has
been successively changed into al antln’acite,
and the diamond. It would seem too,
that by excess of heat, we may bring back the gem
to one of the antecedent stages of its formation.
Thus, professor Faraday had on the lecture-table
diarnd which had been exposed under peculiar conditions to an intense heat, and with the singular
result of converting them into coke. The gems
seemed to have lost their crystalline aspect, and to
have opened out, forming a cauliflower-like cx-
crescence, and assuming the aspect of coke.
Most interesting is it to mark how, after ages of
speculation, the human mind reverts back in the
train of old thoughts and ideas. it is a long time
Since men seriously professed to produce the nobler
from the baser metals; but now it would seem as if
this wild dreaming was not all a dream. It is surely
interesting to know, that men like Faraday think
that “the philosopher, once led into this train of
speculation, ends involuntarily by asking himself
the questions—in what does chemical identity consist? in what will these wonderful developments of
allotropism end? whether the so-called chemical
elements may not be, after all, mere allotropic conditions of fewer universal essences? whether, to
renew the speculations of the alchemists, the metals
may be only so many mutations of each other, by
the power of science mutually convertible? There
was a time when this fundamental doctrine of the
alchemists was opposed to known analogies; it is
now no longer opposed to them, but only some
stages beyond their present development.”
In an age of so much sciolism and pretence,
very instructive is it to see the deep religious
spirit manifested by our profoundest inquirers into
nature’s mysteries. Our high priests of science seeni
now most willing to proclaim the glory and the
majesty of that King whose tender mercy is over
all His works. Again and again, in these lectures,
are we reminded of the Author and Preserver of
this wondrous universe; indeed, we are told that a
main desio’n of these prelections was “to deduce
further evlence of the beneficence, power, majesty,
and wisdom of the Eternal Disposer of all.”