Chapter 72. Hafnium
The last thing that young Moseley did before enlisting was to puzzle his wits over the missing seventy-second element. Not until January of 1923 did chemists following his method decide that the new element is like zirconium and name it for the harbor of Copenhagen.
Meantime two men were trying in vain to sleep beside the less famous harbor of Jean’s Duckling.
“Move over, Asher! How am I to keep my legs under the blanket when you take up more than your share?”
“Chase, you got your full share of my money this evening, and now you want the whole blanket.”
“Suppose I do. It’s no more than your competitors will want after you are gone. Young Hogg won’t be able to keep your pace. They’ll get most of it away from him. You’d better salt some of it down in that little college to the west of you where Dr. Rich used to teach.”
“Chase, I told them long ago that I’d never do anything for Warrenville or any other college.”
“Asher, what an old fossil you are. You’re worse than Charlie Yerkes, who wouldn’t do a thing for education till Harper had appealed to his childish sense of bigness. Charlie was willing to build the biggest telescope in the world just because it was the biggest.”
“He showed good sense, Chase. When we were canoeing up here, your boy made it clear to me that the stars are the perfection of power. The sun is a star, and coal and oil are starlight. You can call me a fossil if you want to, but I’ve got mind enough to see that much.”
“Asher, you have a very remarkable mind, and it is vision that has made you great. But whether vision entitles you to money I don’t know. Lincoln and Pasteur didn’t make much money out of their visions.”