Читать книгу Occult Chemistry: Clairvoyant Observations on the Chemical Elements - Annie Besant - Страница 11

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The first difficulty that faced us was the identification of the forms seen on focusing the sight on gases.^[2] We could only proceed tentatively. Thus, a very common form in the air had a sort of dumb-bell shape (see Plate I); we examined this, comparing our rough sketches, and counted its atoms; these, divided by 18—the number of ultimate atoms in hydrogen—gave us 23.22 as atomic weight, and this offered the presumption that it was sodium. We then took various substances—common salt, etc.—in which we knew sodium was present, and found the dumb-bell form in all. In other cases, we took small fragments of metals, as iron, tin, zinc, silver, gold; in others, again, pieces of ore, mineral waters, etc., etc., and, for the rarest substances, Mr. Leadbeater visited a mineralogical museum. In all, 57 chemical elements were examined, out of the 78 recognized by modern chemistry.

In addition to these, we found 3 chemical waifs: an unrecognized stranger between hydrogen and helium which we named occultum, for purposes of reference, and 2 varieties of one element, which we named kalon and meta-kalon, between xenon and osmium; we also found 4 varieties of 4 recognized elements and prefixed meta to the name of each, and a second form of platinum, that we named Pt. B. Thus we have tabulated in all 65 chemical elements, or chemical atoms, completing three of Sir William Crookes' lemniscates, sufficient for some amount of generalization.

Plate I. Sodium.

In counting the number of ultimate atoms in a chemical elemental atom, we did not count them throughout, one by one; when, for instance, we counted up the ultimate atoms in sodium, we dictated the number in each convenient group to Mr. Jinarâjadâsa, and he multiplied out the total, divided by 18, and announced the result. Thus: sodium (see Plate I) is composed of an upper part, divisible into a globe and 12 funnels; a lower part, similarly divided; and a connecting rod. We counted the number in the upper part: globe—10; the number in two or three of the funnels—each 16; the number of funnels—12; the same for the lower part; in the connecting rod—14. Mr. Jinarâjadâsa reckoned: 10 + (16 x 12) = 202; hence: 202 + 202 + 14 = 418: divided by 18 = 23.22 recurring. By this method we guarded our counting from any prepossession, as it was impossible for us to know how the various numbers would result on addition, multiplication and division, and the exciting moment came when we waited to see if our results endorsed or approached any accepted weight. In the heavier elements, such as gold, with 3546 atoms, it would have been impossible to count each atom without quite unnecessary waste of time, when making a preliminary investigation. Later, it may be worth while to count each division separately, as in some we noticed that two groups, at first sight alike, differed by 1 or 2 atoms, and some very slight errors may, in this way, have crept into our calculations.

In the following table is a list of the chemical elements examined; the first column gives the names, the asterisk affixed to some indicating that they have not yet been discovered by orthodox chemistry. The second column gives the number of ultimate physical atoms contained in one chemical atom of the element concerned. The third column gives the weight as compared with hydrogen, taken as 18, and this is obtained by dividing the calculated number of ultimate atoms by 18. The fourth column gives the recognized weight-number, mostly according to the latest list of atomic weights, the "International List" of 1905, given in Erdmann's "Lehrbuch der Unorganischen Chemie." These weights differ from those hitherto accepted, and are generally lighter than those given in earlier text-books. It is interesting to note that our counting endorses the earlier numbers, for the most part, and we must wait to see if later observations will endorse the last results of orthodox chemistry, or confirm ours.