At the final remark, Chalmers felt a great sense of relief. He thought he had put together all the evidence, made sure it was all consistent, and reached his conclusion. But here was a new piece of evidence, which he had not used in his discussion, which was consistent with the interpretation he had found. You could connect the dots on a map in strange ways that looked good, but when you added another dot you had an acid test — was or was not the new dot consistent with your pattern?
As the hour approached, Professor Watership slipped in his question. “There was a second mineral from Karl Eisenhower. Where are you on analyzing it? Just asking for my friends in Prescott.”
“Yes, the violet crystal,” Chalmers answered. “Fortunately, there was a trace of its dust, so I was able to obtain a good spark spectrum of the native mineral. In addition to silicon and oxygen, it clearly contains one or more additional elements.”
“Yes?” Watership drew out the one word. “Which elements?”
“Unknown elements,” Chalmers said. “More of them. Not X, Y, or Z. I can’t tell how many yet, except there were a lot of spectral lines for it to be just one. Alas, it seems difficult to dissolve the crystal. It just sits in hydrochloric. So Mister Eisenhower and his friend have another mineral to their credit, and you have another paper to yours.”
“Have you tried magic acid yet?” was a voice from the back of the room, a much older man who Chalmers did not recognize.
“Magic acid?” a puzzled Chalmers asked.
“Two parts nitric, two parts sulphuric, one part hydrofluoric, saturate with potassium fluoride. Make fresh, neutralize as soon as you are done with it, before it eats your container, which it will.”
“I’ll have to ask the Safety Committee. First,” Chalmers said emphatically.
“I believe we have interrogated Mister Chalmers enough for one day,” the Department Head finally announced. “I see several students wisely taking notes, so all of our suggestions about what to do next can be handed over to the speaker. But I have a closing remark to Mister Chalmers.: Finish your manuscript, get it typed up, and send it off to JACS. Make your priority claim: Telegraph them now. Department will pay. ‘Manuscript being typed. Title: Three New Elements’. I’d better do the telegraph for you. Students: Some of you may in the rest of your lives hear another chemistry talk this spectacular. If the result can be duplicated, and several of us faculty have already duplicated parts, you just might have heard a talk leading to the Nobel Prize. But don’t count on it, Mister Chalmers.”
Applause was not customary, but when the faculty stood and applauded, the students joined in.
