___________________________________________________________________________ | From : KeelyNet BBS | DataLine : (214) 324-3501 | | Sysop : Jerry W. Decker | Voice : (214) 324-8741 | | File Name : EMMENS.ASC | Online Date : 05/22/94 | | Contributed by : Tim Niver | Dir Category : ENERGY | --------------------------------------------------------------------------- ARGENTAURANA - A STUDY IN THE NON-NUCLEAR TRANSMUTATION OF METALS BY STEPHEN H. EMMENS, Ph.D, ******************************************************* This review is done for upload and commentary to the Vangard Sciences Research Group in Dallas, Texas and there associates by the efforts of Tim Niver. It is hoped that, those reviewing this material, will contact the Rex Research Archive and obtain a copy of this book by Dr. Emmens, undertake to perform the research outlined therein, and in turn upload their findings to the KeelyNet BBS so that we all may benefit from their knowledge. ******************************************************* At about the same time that John Ernst Worrel Keely met his untimely end, Stephen H. Emmens, a contemporary of Keely's, published his work ARGENTAURANA, in which he outlines his experimental work in transmuting a then-commonly known alloy, "Mexican Silver" into a metallic material that, when examined by the United States Assayer's Office in New York City, was pronounced to be, chemically, physically and, for all practical intents and purposes, gold. Dr. Emmens apparently owned the laboratory at which these various experiments took place, listing his address in the preface to his book as being Argentaurum Laboratory, 20, Central Avenue, New Brighton, Staten Island, New York City, New York, U.S.A. Throughout the rest of this remarkable work, Dr. Emmens describes his method for achieving this seemingly unachievable feat of transmuting a silver alloy into gold - a method which included hammering dollar coins or parts thereof, minted in Mexico, of the aforementioned alloy, in a crucible immersed in a freezing water bath, which was then hammered with a close fitting piston device attached to a crossarm which was operated via a cam shaft to produce sixty impacts per minute of the piston into the crucible and onto the alloy in question. After forty hours or thereabouts, during which time the crucible was maintained in a frigid water bath with the addition of ice to maintain a uniform temperature, with occasional lapses in the hammering process out of consideration for sleeping neighbors in the middle of the night, this constant hammering, under maintained cold, produced what the Assay Office in New York City was apparently happy to pronounce as gold. As if this were insufficient by itself, Dr. Emmens produced, then sold to the Assay Office, a total of 670 ounces of gold produced by this method. There are several pictures in this book which, sadly, have not survived the attempts made at xeroxing the original text for distribution purposes. Whether or not copies of the book still exist is open to question, since it was apparently published in England in 1899 by a publisher, George De Boistel & Co. Printers, 30, Bridge Street, and 37, St. Mary Axe, London, E. C. The xeroxed copy has the mark of the British Royal Museum on several pages, which would lead one to believe that the original copy of this xeroxed reproduction most likely still resides there. Contained within this volume as well is the apparently fairly lengthy correspondence Dr. Emmens Page 1 had with Sir William Crookes, of the "Radiometer" fame, from approximately the same time that Dr. Emmens was producing his experiments, the results of Sir William's experiments being essentially a replication of those by Dr. Emmens with equally good results. Several questions obviously arise here. First, if gold could be produced by this method, why has it not been capitalized upon, thereby making gold's obviously superior qualities for use in electronics and similar electrical applications far more accessible than it is at present? Secondly, if a hoax were being perpetrated, how does it come that one of the most recognized scientific names of the time could be coerced into perpetrating an obvious fraud? Surely Sir William had a great deal more to gain from debunking an obvious hoax than he had to gain from pronouncing it a real and workable phenomenon. And, for the purposes of this article, last, but by no means last nor least, if this method of transmutation IS reproducible, if it does in fact work, what other metals or alloys of metals, as yet unheard of, might we be able to produce by similar experimentation? The volume leaves Dr. Emmens apparently continuing his studies. No further publications by him are known to me at present, aside from this one. To date, I have no knowledge of the end of this man's life, nor under what circumstances that end occurred, nor what became of his papers following his death. It has been written elsewhere that, prior to his death, John Ernst Worrel Keely, denounced as a fraud, charlatan, pirate and various other nefarious terms, none of which, as we now know, applied to him in any sense, burned his notebooks and personal papers, to the detriment of us all. What he learned, at great expense to himself in time, energy, and most of all, credibility and heartache, is lost, perhaps forever, perhaps not. At the time of this writing I am unable to carry out these studies into the claims made by Dr. Emmens myself, much as I might like to do so. Who knows what new metals, what new compounds, what new elements perhaps might be had from verification of and continuation of these experiments? And did the various notebooks of Dr. Emmens suffer the same fate, being destroyed at his death, leaving us with only this one volume of work as a tantalizing hint at what might be accomplished had those books been saved? Or do they perhaps sit in an attic or used book shop somewhere, waiting to be rediscovered and their knowledge put back to use nearly a hundred years later? Someone must undertake to do this work of continuing this research. Someone must undertake to verify, and then explain, why these results, IF viable, ARE viable. And that someone must be willing to share their findings with the rest of us, not to deny them any material gain from their work, but to further the knowledge base which has been won with such hard work to date. Rather than hiding it, it must be made known. Rather than being burned in despair, it must be preserved, so that those who come after us may partake of what we learned, and expand upon it. For those parties interested in obtaining a copy of this document, it may be had from the Rex Research Archive, P.O. Box 19250, Jean, Nevada 89019 USA. The document number is E16-EMM. I apologize to say I do not know the current cost. -- Tim Niver --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Excellent paper TIM!...thanks for sharing it with us! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- KeelyNet (214) 324-3501 is a FREE Alternative Sciences BBS Your file contributions and financial support are much appreciated! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Page 2