THE NEW CHEMISTRY.

Just what shall be done with the newly-discovered radio-active substances is a problem that perplexes every thinking physicist. They refuse to fit into our established and harmonious chemical system; they even threaten to undermine the venerable atomic theory, which we have accepted unquestioned for well-nigh a century. The profound mathematical deductions of the modern school of English physicists, based upon the startling phenomena presented by the Roentgen and Becquerel rays, as well as by the emanations of radium and polonium, may compel us to change our notions of ultimate units to such an extent that the old-time atom may be compelled to give place to something infinitely smaller. The elements, once conceived to be simple forms of primordial matter, are boldly proclaimed to be minute astronomical systems of whirling units of matter. This seems more like scientific moonshine than sober thought; and yet the new doctrines are accepted by Lodge, Crookes, and by Lord Kelvin himself.

The abandonment of the atom, at first faintly advocated, is now seriously discussed. When it is considered that radium, despite its prodigious radio-activity, loses an inappreciable amount of its mass-an amount calculated by Becquerel to be one gramme in a billion years per square centimeter of surface-the enormity of the atom and its utter inadequacy to account for the phenomena presented become manifest. Radium does emanate particles of some kind-this much at least is certain. These particles cannot be atoms; for atoms are so large that the active substance would rapidly lose in weight. The necessity of abandoning the atomic theory long ago discussed by Crookes. study of the phenomena of the vacuum tube at high exhaustions had led him to formulate his "radiant matter" theory, for which he was compelled to bear not a little ridicule. To him it seemed that the luminous, electric, or mechanic phenomena of the vacuum tube could be accounted for only by assuming the existence of something much smaller than the atom-fragments of matter, ultra-atomic cor

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puscles, minute things very much lighter than atoms, and indeed, the foundation stones of which atoms are themselves composed. Prof. J. J. Thomson, Sir Norman Lockyer, and Lord Kelvin later adopted some of his views. The discovery of the radioactive substances has placed the radiant matter theory on a firmer footing.

If we must discard the atom, what are we to accept in its place? Two new conceptions have been found necessary-the "ion" as the unit of matter, the "electron as the unit of force. The new chemistry holds that matter and force are different manifestations of the same thing. Inertia is the characteristic, indeed the indispensable, property of both matter and electricity. What could be simpler than to assume that the ultimate particles of each are one and the same ? Prof. Fleming has declared that we can no more have anything which can be called electricity apart from the corpuscles, than we can have momentum apart from matter." And Sir Oliver Lodge has given it as his opinion that the Dalton atom, which was once an axiomatic conception of chemistry, may consist of a certain number of electrons rapidly moving in orbits.

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Vague though many ideas of the modern chemist must necessarily be when his science is passing through an important transition stage, still he has calculated with no little nicety the masses of ions and electrons. Sir Oliver Lodge puts it thus: If we imagine an ordinary-sized church to be an atom of hydrogen, the electrons constituting it will be represented by about 700 grains of sand, each the size of an ordinary full stop, rotating, according to Lord Kelvin, with inconceivable velocity. Crookes puts it still more graphically. The sun's diameter is about one and a half million kilometers, and that of smallest planetoid about twenty-four kilometers. If an atom of hydrogen be magnified to the size of the sun, an electron will be about two-thirds the diameter of the planetoid.

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If the electrons of all elements are exactly alike, or in other words, if there is but one matter, just as there is but one force, and if the elements be but the various manifestations of

THE WONDERS OF RADIUM.

More astonishing discoveries than those made by Professor and Madame Curie, by Becquerel and other scientists, the world has not known for many a year. The Roentgen rays, which would pass through wood, leather, and other opaque substances, were the pioneers in this field, but now the clue thus given has been followed until new elements have been discovered, and science has to readjust theories which hitherto have been regarded as incontestable. When Peligot, in 1840, succeeded in extract-' ing from pitchblende the new metal, to which Klaproth, its discoverer, gave the name of uranium, no one had any idea of all the qualities it possessed. It was recently discovered that it emitted rays very like the Roentgen rays, and that it formed part of many metals. In seeking to discover it in various substances, Professor Curie and his wife found that in many minerals which contained uranium, there was some unknown substance more active than uranium itself. They chose pitchblende to experiment upon. Separating it into minute portions, and analyzing them, they came upon an intensely radio-active substance, to which they gave the name of polonium, in honour of their Polish nationality; and another substance, almost as active, to which they gave the name of radium.

It was found that rays, having all the effects produced artificially by the Roentgen apparatus, were given out spontaneously by radium, and these

were more powerful a hundred thousand times than those given out by uranium. Small quantities of radium were lent by the Curies to Sir William Crookes, Sir Oliver D. Dodge, and other scientists, for purposes of experiment, and they are all puzzled and astonished at its qualities. By the light emitted from it, photographs can be taken as with the Roentgen rays, and the photographs show the bones in the hand, or the coins in a pocketbook. The rays also act on other substances, for when a piece of platinum was placed near the radium, in a dark room, the platinum immediately shone with a bright, greenish light. Its effects on the human body are also very marked. Sir William Crookes put a small quantity of radium in a brass cylinder, which he put in his pocket to take to a meeting of scientists. On his return, he found a blister on his side opposite the pocket in which he had carried the radium. Subsequently, not being sure that the radium had produced the blister, he touched his bare arm with the substance. A sore resulted, which took two weeks to heal, the mischief having penetrated the flesh so deeply.

The astonishing feature of radium is that in spite of its enormous activity, which is in the form of minute corpuscles thrown off at the speed of 120,000 miles a second, it does not appreciably diminish in substance. This suggests the possibility that, at last, the long-sought agent which will give light without heat, or combustion, has been found. The discoverers say, however, that radium is extremely rare. It takes enormous quantities of pitchblende to yield a minute quantity of radium. At present, a piece of radium a seventieth part of a grain in weight, costs two dollars; so that a pound, if it could be had, would be worth nearly a million dollars. Sir William Crookes closes his account of the metal by saying: "The phenomena of radium require us to recast many of our ideas of matter, electricity, and energy, and its discovery promises to realize what, for the last hundred years, have been but daydreams of philosophy." Christian Herald.

-Curtis Wayer-Smith.

CANADA'S GROWING TIME.

Never have the evidences of Canada's rapid development been more marked than during the current year. Canada is no longer doing business on a back street. She challenges the attention of the world. The Congress of the Chambers of Commerce in Montreal, in which the great centres and remotest dependencies of the Empire were so ably represented, have won a recognition of Canada's exhaustless resources and possibilities in the high places of the Empire. Lord Strathcona has again laid the Dominion under obligation by the renewed evidence of his energy in promoting its interests.

The visit, too, of many distinguished members of the British Parliament under the guidance of Dr. Lunn, the meetings of capitalists and actuaries in Toronto, the pleasant interchange of compliment in the joint banquet of the British and French admirals in Montreal, are all evidences of international friendship and good will.

Harper's Weekly for October 3rd contains a striking letter from a Pennsylvania correspondent. It calls attention to the fact that during the fiscal year 1903 the trade of Canada was considerably over $467,667,000, an increase of $43,750,000 over the previous year. Within seven years the trade of the Dominion has more than doubled. The Canadian exports are $37 per head, while those of the United States were but $18 per head. The total trade was $81 per head, that of the United States was $31 per head.

-The Chicago News.

In 1850 the United States, with a population of 23,000,000, had a total foreign trade of $320,000,000, while the Dominion to-day, with a population of less than 6,000,000, has a total foreign trade of $470,000,000. The writer well remarks:

"Canadians, generally, realize that a future as great as the present position of the United States is destined for their country, and they prefer to work out their destiny apart from the United States, yet in no way forgetting that they are bound by ties of blood and advantages which bind together, not only this continent, but the whole Anglo-Saxon peoples."

The grain and cattle exports from Montreal have gone up by leaps and bounds, whereas those from the American seaboard cities have relatively declined. The most striking forward step is the legislation providing for a new Grand Trunk Pacific Railway which will open up vast and fertile areas and lands rich with the products of the forest and the mine. Unfortunately the newspaper advocacy and criticism of this new transcontinental highway has been marked by partisan feeling. The calmer judgment of such an independent journal as The Monetary Times highly commends the enterprise as opening up new regions of our country, but questions its success as a grain carrying route. Our map will show the wide grain producing areas which it will penetrate and the extraordinary sweep of the isothermals in the great Mackenzie Basin.

LYNCHERS AND LAW-BREAKERS. The lynching mania still continues in the States. It is by no means an uncommon thing to take up an American paper with an account of jailbreaking and lynching. Among the most harrowing of these was the recent horror in Wilmington, Del., the scene of the murder of Helen Bishop, the eighteen-year-old daughter of a Methodist Episcopal clergyman. In connection with this crime was revealed the highest and most basal side of human nature. The heartbroken father, when he learned that there was danger of a mob gathering

crimes of some of the foremost of them were revealed, it is possible that the negro, taking into account his origin and his opportunities, would not be the greatest criminal among them; that the mere onlookers were abettors of the crime. Lynchers are like wolves, harmless unless the pack assembles.

THE RACE PROBLEM.

The race problem in its most aggravated form confronts the American people. For months their leading organs of opinion have been strongly

and taking justice into its own hands, published a letter, pleading that a just trial be given the murderer of his child. "Let us not try to atone for one crime, no matter how hellish, by committing another," wrote the forbearing Christian father.

But the mob was not to be stayed. The criminal was taken from his cell and burned to death in the presence of a howling, infuriated crowd.

The Christian Advocate says that in the crowd that lynched this man, there were many as destitute of self-control as the negro they burned; that if the

denouncing the return to the methods of barbarism in many parts of the Republic. This is not a mere local symptom, but east and west, and north and south, the outrages on civilization have been perpetrated. The Mafia of Sicily and the Abruzzi have been rivalled by the feuds and murders of Kentucky. The protest of the nation against the Russian persecution of the Jews has been neutralized by the lawless violence with which mob law has been let loose.

The most hopeful feature is the widespread denunciation of the lead