Oh, this is quite wonderful.
The powerful five-foot thingamatron has irradiated the gold foil. Now, the professor must run upstairs briskly to the fume cupboard, without pausing even to hold a door for a lady, and plunge the delicate foil into aqua regia, Meanwhile his assistant summons a hansom cab, and holds out the professor’s hat, ready. “Quickly, my good fellow - to the Chemical Institute with all dispatch: there is a half-soverign for you if you hurry”. And they are off…
Mendelevium 257 has a half-life of five and a half hours. In those days, the post would probably have got most of it there in time.
