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Hokitika Guardian, 30 October 1924, Page 2

Tm; British elections look place yesterday. and some results should lc available to-night, it being '*S ported that some -JIIO odd results a ill be unnouiucd which should give some idea of the way the polling has gone. Judging from the many mixed statements that have* come to hand during the very sharp if short election campaign there is every prospect of the .Labor Party in power losing, sonic ot its present voting strength. The Hussion Treaty, and the recent disclosures in connection with the Zinovielf letter have caused something of a sensation which apparently will rebound against the popularity of the party in power, for the Btissian disclosures have an unhealthy taste, and will leave a feeling that all is not well in the arrangements made for the Commercial treaty and tin* granting of the large loan, which tin* liussian Soviet has aimed at. The non-lighting pact between the the Liberals and Conservatives lias also caused a reduction in the number of three-cornered contests, and this will give Labour no opportunity to gain so many seats with a minority of votes as was the case at the last election. Even now, however, tile votes have been cast and a few short hours will give the information as to how the election has gone. The result will lie eagerly awaited, as it will have very far-reaching results over the whole wor Id-wido Ein pi ro.

Tin-: nature of the atom, and the marvels of its structure, were dealt with in an intensely interesting lecture delivered before the members of the Wellington Philosophical Society by Dr. Coleridge Farr, Professor of .Physics at the -'Canterbury Cnivcosity College. If any of the 87 elements of which the earth was composed were divided until it would admit of no further division, said Dr. Farr, we would then have arrived at the atom. If cupper were tho substance taken, that atom would still lie an atom of copper. But what was that atom made of. and what made it copper and not some other substance? The structure of every atom was alike, in that it consisted of a certain definite number of electrons, revolving around a central nucleus, and the atom became one clement or iuiotlhcr, nec-ording -as the relative number of electrons and their relations to each other increased, dim. inisliod, or altered. Thus it would be seen that one element could be changed into another if only the number of electrons composing its atoms could bo changed, for the electrons themselves were all alike. This was the idea at the hack of the medieval attempts to transmute the baser metals into gold, though these old alchemists, of course, had no faintest notion of the atomic theory. It remained for Sir Ernest Ttutlierford actually to accomplish the feat that had so often been dreamed of. only he did not change silver to gold, but nitrogen to hydrogen and helium. By means of a special electric force, lie completely smashed the constituent atoms of nitrogen. and when disrupted electrons gathered themselves together again they united to form, not nitrogen, but; two other completers* different substances, hydrogen and helium. The law of nature seemed to ho that heavier elements might he changed to lighter ones, but not vice versa, so that the old alchemists were up against a fundamental difficulty in attempting to transmute silver int-o gold.