A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3244, 14 June 1911, Page 7

A REMARKABLE DISCOVERY.

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES' OF METAiix

■Some years ago scientific men in Russia were astonished say-s the New York “Outlook,” to. find that some bars of pure tin which had lain a long time in a warehouse had turned from a white metal into a pile of gray powder. An analysis of the powder showed it to be as pure tin as were the bars. Scientists were unable to determine the cause of this disintegration, and researches -have been carried- on ever since in an endeavor to ascertain it. Professor Ernest Cohen, of tlie University of Utrecnt, published the result of his researches in “La Technique” in 1910. He Guild that the “disease” was not confined to pig tin, ibut occasionally attacked organ pipes of tin, and that the same cause, or something similar, produced disintegrations in lead and copper, and in their Sloysi. He was unable to determine the cause, but found that the action took place only within certain circumscribed temperatures; that by keeping the gray powder at a temperature of about eighty degrees for some time it returned to the normal- white condition. He found likewise that the change in other metals was. due to an alteration from an amorphous into a crystalline condition; but, in his researches, he discovered: the most interesting.facts—that the tin especially might resist the action of the low temperature unless “inoculated” with some of the gray powder; that as soon as the tin was brought in contact with some of the powder the metal began to swell and to disintegrate, and that t-he “disease” extended until the whole mass was changed ; and. that the process was strangely like that of “infection,” which gives’rise to some of the diseases of plants and animals. Experimenting with other metals, he found that- if the product of their alteration came in contact with sheets of copper or lear or polished; rolls or many alloys, the disintegration commenced, at the point of contact, and rapidly extended and that this took place at any temperature. Professor Cohen recommended' that valuable metallic objects in museums etc., should be carefully inspected from time to time, and that if any indicated that they were “infected” they should be immediately removed from the case containing other metals, and that T as temperature has much to do with the -phenomena, it should not be allowed 'to fall -below seventy degrees. In the article entitled “The Search for the Origin of Life,” which was published in “The Outlook” of 31st December, 1910, the writer, Dr. Ledoux. mentioned the fact that the prooesses of crystallisation and of amorphous growth in mineral substances in some cases resembled very closely the process of growth of organic matter through cell multiplication. ’lt would seem from the latest report of Professor Cohen, which is. published in a recent number of the French journal. “Metaux et Alliages,” that no created thing is immune from “disease,” considered independent- of the ordinary chemical precesses of oxidation, reduction, etc.