The Reported Transmutation of Mercury into Gold

Abstract

IN your account of the reported discovery, by Prof. Miethe, of the transmutation of mercury into gold (NATURE, Aug. 9, p. 197) by the prolonged action of a high-tension electric current upon it, you seem to consider only one way, and that not the more obvious way, of effecting such a transmutation, namely, by striking out a hydrogen ion from the nucleus by some powerful method of disruption. There is another method of effecting such a change, namely, by attaching an electron to the mercury nucleus. Indeed, for some time before Prof. Miethe's announcement it has been clear to me that, by passing a sufficiently high tension discharge through mercury vapour, not merely that such a transmutation might occur, but that it was inevitable, unless our present views of atomic structure are radically at fault.