DISCOVERY OF NEW CHEMICAL ELEMENTS. 831 



to it that I pass by the hypotheses that have been set forth with 

 respect to the matter. 



It is not impossible that the discovery of these two new elements, 

 argon and helium, may give occasion for a remodeling or a trans- 

 formation of the periodical system — a remodeling by means of 

 which some uncertainties and even contradictions now existing will 

 undoubtedly be removed. Thus, for example, the atomic weight 

 of tellurium, as recently determined by B. Brauner and Ludwig 

 Standenmaler, does not enter at all into the periodical system; on the 

 other hand, the existence in this substance of a foreign element, such 

 as the austriacum suggested by B. Brauner, does not seem to be 

 established. As to the much-agitated question whether and to what 

 extent the atomic weight of nickel differs from that of cobalt, I 

 believe I have given a satisfactory answer, and have refuted the hy- 

 pothesis of Gerhard Kriiss and F. W. Schmid of the existence in one 

 of the substances of a third element which has been called gnomium. 



The rapid glance which we have cast over the discovery of new 

 elements during the last twenty-five years shows that researches 

 have been pursued in this direction with great activity, and with 

 the return of considerable results. Yet the speculations for which 

 these researches have given occasion with respect to the possibility 

 of an ultimate decomposition of apparently simple bodies, and re- 

 ciprocally respecting the progressive development of the primitive 

 substance and the formation of many of the present elements, may 

 be considered very uncertain. I mention among these Mr. Lockyer's 

 hypothesis of the dissociation of the elements within the solar 

 atmosphere. Hypotheses of this kind must remain hypotheses so 

 long as we do not succeed in splitting a substance unequivocally re- 

 garded as simple, or in transforming some element into another; yet 

 they need not be considered wholly inadmissible. Something un- 

 expected may happen at any time that will open to science new 

 roads of investigation. — Translated for the Popular Science Month- 

 ly from the Revue Scientiflque. 



From the results of an investigation as to the use of fermented drinks 

 by prehistoric peoples, M. G. de Mortillet concludes that the lake dwell- 

 ings of Clairvaux in the Jura and of Switzerland show that the neolithic 

 people of central Europe had a wiue made from raspberries and mul- 

 berries ; and the dwellings of Bourget in Savoy aud various stations in the 

 Alps, that the use of this wine continued through the bronze age. On the 

 southern slope of the Alps the relics of the dwellings between the prehis- 

 toric and the protohistoric ages reveal the use of another fermented liquor, 

 prepared from the dogwood. Traces of the use of wine from grapes are 

 found in the terramares of the plain of the Po, going as far back as the 

 earliest bronze age. 



