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The Mystery of Geognost Karamyshev’s Lost Invention

химическая лаборатория
© Общественное достояние

In the early 1970s, the Swedish magazine "Wonders of Science and Technology" published an article about an extraordinary invention made back in the 18th century by Russian scientist Alexander Karamyshev. In it the historian Reynar Hagel described the creation of a device capable of overturning humanity's ideas about the nature of things. It was about giving complete transparency to opaque in nature of bodies...

According to the publication of Mr. Hagel, Karamyshev demonstrated the invention at the St. Petersburg Mining School on January 27, 1776. The choice of place was simple: Alexander Matveyevich was the first teacher of chemistry and metallurgy at the school, which had been opened by order of Catherine the Great three years earlier.

In addition to the students, the experiment was observed by the famous mineralogists Lehmann, Brikman and Kankrin, who later recalled what they had seen in their writings. For example, Lehmann in his work "Problems of Mineralogy" wrote:

"...By demonstrating his apparatus, Karamyshev proved that it was possible to produce a doubling stone from any opaque known spar by art" (in other words, to give crystal transparency to the Icelandic spar with which the experiment was performed).

исландский шпат
© Форпост Северо-Запад / Исландский шпат

Brickman cited Karamyshev's opening statement in his article, which he said just before the demonstration:

"I have more than once thought about this task in the mines of the Urals.... The machine I invented is still imperfect, but it is already working. Look, gentlemen! The power of this apparatus is still small, but imagine a chemist and geognostist armed with this "enlightener"! And the metallurgist, and the geognost and the chemist will see all kinds of ores and metals under the earth, they will see the guts of the furnaces and see the essence of the miraculous transformation of matter...".

Next Alexander Matveyevich showed how a sample of ordinary feldspar shone in layers before the eyes of the astonished spectators, revealing mica and other inclusions, until it completely dissolved in the air. As soon as the scientist stopped the installation, the mineral immediately regained its former appearance.

250 years later there may be those who will call this story a concoction, who will accuse Karamyshev of illusionism, and who will accuse the famous scientists who told of the "true miracle" that took place before their eyes of a conspiracy.

However Alexander Matveyevich was not some half-legendary inventor like Levsha or Munchausen, but a real historical personality: an outstanding naturalist, doctor of medicine, lecturer at Russia's first technical institute, corresponding member of the Russian and Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences. He was known for his numerous works on mineralogy, chemistry, geognezia (geology), and botany.

In addition, much later, in 1919, Karamyshev's diary fell into the local history museum of the town of Kadui in the Vologda region. It contained drawings and calculations of that very device. The valuable item was kept in the vaults under number 978, but 10 years later it disappeared. According to rumors, it was confiscated by the OGPU staff for their own research.

How did the "alchemist" Alexander Matveyevich manage to "see through rocks"?

Reynar Hagel suggested that the mineralogist-experimenter penetrated limestone with an electromagnetic field - he chose the optimal penetrating radiation and constructed a system which transformed the invisible images of the studied object in the fixed range of electromagnetic radiation into a visible image. At present this problem is solved by introscopy (body-scanning technique), which was developed in the XX century.

Фарадей
© Alexander Blaikley (1816 - 1903)

The Swedish publicist's version has been confirmed by modern science. In 1980, exactly 200 years after Karamyshev's remarkable lecture, Russian specialists in the field of optical instrumentation presented to the State Committee of the USSR for Inventions and Discoveries "a method of decolorizing colored natural Icelandic feldspar crystals." The desired result was achieved by heating to high temperatures in a vacuum by the field of currents of high and ultrahigh frequency, as well as by UV-irradiation of crystals in air (with different radiation energy depending on the type of spar - 253.7 nm for yellow and 260-400 nm for pink). Bactericidal uviolet lamps and DRSH lamps with filters were used for this purpose.

The study of the internal structure of an object and the processes going on in it with the help of waves is widely used today in various fields of science. For example, in geology; medicine for diagnostic purposes (ultrasound, tomography); metallurgy for metal quality research; semiconductor engineering; hydraulic engineering for control of underwater parts of structures; construction for quality control of structures; for control of luggage, cargo containers and vehicles.

One can only speculate as to what successes could have been achieved if introscopy had begun to develop in 1776 with the experiments of Karamyshev, rather than in 1895 with the discovery of "X-rays" by Wilhelm Röntgen.

Many scientific discoveries and technical developments are accompanied by myths and legends, and decades or even centuries later it is difficult to distinguish truth from fiction. The history of science is full of mysteries. And the life of the inventor of the first introscope is one of them.

After the public demonstration of his invention, the scientist did not write a single line about his discovery. Even more surprising was something else: unexpectedly for everyone, a brilliant young scientist, before whom a wide field of activity was open, left science and teaching, left the capital and went to Irkutsk - the wilderness, which was then represented by this city. Even today it takes more than three days to get there by train, but in the middle of the 18th century it could take more than a month. The only land route from the European part of the country to the borders of China was used, among other purposes, to transport convicts to Siberia.

иркутск
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Karamyshev became director of the Assignment Bank. Historians are still guessing what it wa: an "honorable exile" or the researcher's resentment at the refusal of the post (according to the recollections of his wife, he was offended by the appointment of another specialist to the vacant place in the Berg Collegium). In any case, in Irkutsk, he engaged in a completely uncharacteristic of his education and experience bureaucratic business.

Alexander Matveyevich came from the service nobility. He was born in 1744 in the family of a keeper of mines at the mining plants in Chelyabinsk and Tobolsk districts.

After receiving an elementary education at the Yekaterinburg Mining School, the young man also graduated from the verbal and arithmetic schools. In 1756 he went to Moscow, where he was admitted to the "Latin class" of the gymnasium at Moscow University. Two years later, by a commission headed by Mikhail Lomonosov himself, the fourteen-year-old Karamyshev was sent to study first at the University of Königsberg (Prussia) and then at the University of Uppsala (Sweden).

In Russia there has always been an awareness of the need for the development of the mining industry. Builders, architects, physicians and other specialists were easily enough prescribed by Peter I from abroad, but with mining engineers and metallurgists the matter was much more complicated. The emperor charged diplomats and merchants going abroad with the duty of selecting mining and factory masters for service in Russia. However, they were also valued at home. Sweden, England, Germany and Denmark did not need a potentially dangerous competitor in the world market. For example, when in 1724 Vasily Tatishchev arrived in Sweden to conclude an agreement to invite Swedish metallurgists for service, King Frederik I immediately issued an edict forbidding his specialists to leave for Russia. It was then that they began talking about the need to create their own mining school. But while it was still at the conception stage, the only thing about which we could hardly agree with Scandinavia was to educate our young men in Sweden, who would eventually become the first professionally trained specialists.

Karamyshev studied mining, geology, mineralogy, metallurgy, assay chemistry, and economics in Prussia and Sweden under the famous Carl Linnaeus, founder of the Royal Academy of Sciences and "father of botany." Then for five years he was exposed to the industrial experience of Western countries.

Карл Линней
© Карл Линней кисти Александра Рослина

On his return to Moscow in 1771, Alexander Matveyevich was promoted to the rank of mine surveyor, "captain-assistant of the rank" and, probably as a test, he was sent as an expert to the Olonets District to the closed Voytsy gold mine to analyze the condition and efficiency of the enterprise. His superiors were satisfied with the results of the trip, and the mining engineer was invited to serve as a mine surveyor at the Berg Collegium and a teacher of chemistry, mineralogy and metallurgy at the Mining School.

From 1779 he was a member of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, of the Imperial Free Economic Society and of the Berlin Society of Lovers of Natural History, and a correspondent of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He is well acquainted with the high society, with Prince George Potemkin, who introduced him to Catherine II. And suddenly - Irkutsk...

In 1780, in parallel with the management of the bank Alexander Matveyevich was appointed chief of Nerchinsk mining plants. Under his command was a huge area of Nerchinsk mining district, stretching for more than 550 kilometers from west to east and about 500 km from south to north. Within a year he supplied new equipment, introduced mechanization, opened five new mines and increased one and a half times the production of silver. In addition, the geologist is called the discoverer of cobalt ores in Russia.

Нерчинские заводы
© Нерчинские заводы

Karamyshev left eastern Siberia only a year before his death. In 1790 the scientist returned to St. Petersburg, where he served in the office, which, being the property of the imperial chancellery, was in charge of state factories, mines and pits. In his later years he worked on refining precious metals, studying the composition and properties of diamonds, and experimenting with artificial gems - essentially the first attempts at experimental mineralogy in Russia.

The talented Russian scientist and experimenter died in 1791, leaving behind one of the most interesting scientific mysteries of the 18th century. Perhaps when his missing diary will finally be found and handed over to specialists for study, we will be able to solve it.

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