Apparent Transmutation.

New York Times 100 years ago today, June 22, 1913:
British Scientists Discover Four Elements in Hydrogen Tube.
Special Cable to The New York Times.
    LONDON, June 21.— At the scientific meeting of the Chemical Society held in London this week an interesting communication was made on the subject of the presence of helium and neon in tubes containing hydrogen, through which an electric discharge had been passed.
    Some months ago Prof. J. Norman Collie and H. S. Patterson read papers before the Chemical Society that caused a great stir at home and abroad as tending to show the apparent creation of elements. At that time they described how both helium and neon could be produced in hydrogen gas by passing a powerful electrical discharge through hydrogen. Since then they have repeated the experiment many times. Moreover, it has received confirmation from the fact that the experimenter, Dr. Mason, in a note sent to the Chemical Society, describes how he also obtained neon by the subjection of hydrogen to the same treatment, and presented some additional facts.
    It has been noted that the amount of hydrogen in the experimental tubes steadily disappears during the electrification. Evidence was also presented to show that a peculiar gas appeared in the tubes that gave the spectrum of carbon. Hitherto, carbon had been known to exist only in solid shape, either as a black solid or as a diamond.
    This curious carbon gas, when subjected to an electrical discharge in contact with mercury, entirely disappears. In many ways it resembles the substance first discovered by Sir Joseph J. Thompson and called by him "X3."
    Since their first paper was read Messrs. Collie and Patterson have made several experiments with tubes without electrodes, in order to eliminate the possibility of the gases, and helium and neon, coming from the substance of which electrodes are made.
    In this they were successful, and by the means of a powerful alternating current in a coil of wire, wound about a bulb in which hydrogen was present, they produced both helium and neon.
    An extraordinary result was also obtained in examining the metal that splashed off from the electrode during the electrical discharge in the tube. This metal always contained something that was apparently sulphur, for on dissolution in acids the various metals used for electrodes, namely, copper, palladium, magnesium, and platinum, invariably gave a white precipitate with a solution of barium chloride.
    Up to the present four so-called elementary substances, helium, neon, carbon, and sulphur, have appeared in these electrified tubes, and hydrogen disappeared at the same time.
    As the greatest care is taken to start the experiments with none of these four elements present in the tubes, their appearance is regarded as most remarkable. Whatever the explanation may be, the facts will need further verification, and many more experiments will have to be tried before it is proved definitely whether or not they are produced from hydrogen.