“But how are you going to speed up the reaction?” asked Jim. “I thought that uranium was pretty strong stuff by itself.”
“It is, but not as strong as this new substance we have in combination with the silver here. So I think I’ll try a little electrolysis—or, in plain English, electro-plating.”
As he spoke, the professor clipped a couple of platinum electrodes to the basin, one at each end. To the anode he attached one of the negatives, to the cathode a small piece of iron.
“Now then, we’ll soon see.”
He passed a low current into the wires, through a rheostat, with startling results. There was a sudden foaming of the solution and a weird vapor rose from it, luminous, milky, faintly orange.
For a moment, all they could do was stare.
Then Professor Wentworth switched off the current and stepped toward the tank. Waving away that orange gas, he reached for the cathode and held it up. It was no longer iron, but silver, now.
“Plated, you see!” he exclaimed in triumph.
“Yes, but those fumes!” cried Jim. “Why, they were the same color as the—the Fire Ants, as you call them.”