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THE ALUMNI JOURNAL. 



actually experimented by passing the 

 electric spark through a mixture of 

 "phlogisticated" and "dephlogisticated 

 air," to see if there was anything which 

 did not combine with "dephlogisticated 

 air" as he had found "phlogisticated 

 air" did. He did get an uncombinable 

 portion in his wonderful investigation* 

 and concludes that if there is any part of 

 the "phlogisticated air" which cannot be 

 made into nitrous acid it is not more than 

 T ^o part of the whole. 



Prof. Wm. Ramsay and L,ord Raleigh 

 have further experimented during the 

 past year and have succeeded in with- 

 drawing nitrogen from air by means of 

 red-hot magnesium. They passed "at- 

 mospheric nitrogen" backwards and for- 

 wards over red-hot magnesium from one 

 large gas holder to another to obtain a 

 considerable quantity of the heavier gas- 

 In the course of ten days about 1,500 C. 

 c. were collected and transferred grad- 

 ually to a mercury gas holder, from 

 which the gas was passed over soda-lime, 

 P 2 5 , magnesium at a red heat, copper 

 oxide, soda-lime and P 2 5 into a second 

 mercury gas holder. The volume was 

 reduced to about 200 C. c. At this point 

 the density was 19.09 and it was ex- 

 amined by means of the spectrum and 

 though showing nitrogen bands, showed 

 many other lines which were not recog- 

 nizable as belonging to any known ele- 

 ment. They have called this element 

 Argon from an, without and ergon, ener- 

 gy. It has refused to combine with any 

 known reagent. 



The authors then proved by atmolysis 

 that the new element was present in the 

 air and they at once instituted rather la- 

 borious negative experiments and proved 

 thereby that the new element is not de- 

 rived from nitrogen from chemical 

 sources. They then separated the new 

 element on a large scale from 100 to 150 

 litres of atmospheric nitrogen and deter- 



mined the density as compared with 

 hydrogen by several methods and found 

 19.90 to be probably the figure. This 

 might be fixed as the molecular weight, 

 did not certain considerations had to the 

 supposition that the molecule may be 

 like mercury monatomic, which would 

 make the molecular and therefore atomic 

 weight double the density. 



Wm. Crookes examined the spectrum 

 of Argon as seen in a vacuum tube 

 through which the electric spark was 

 passed. Two lines are especially charac- 

 teristic; they are less refrangible than the 

 red lines of hydrogen or lithium and 

 serve well to identify the gas in this way. 

 Besides these red lines, a bright yellow 

 line, more refrangible than the sodium 

 line recurs as also five bright green lines 

 besides a number of less intensity. 



Argon is about 2^ times as soluble in 

 water as nitrogen and possesses approxi- 

 mately the same solubility as oxygen. 

 It is interesting to note that Dr. K. 

 Olszewski of the University of Cracow 

 worked with 300 C. c. of gas prepared 

 by the authors and has obtained the 

 critical temperature, boiling-point, freez- 

 ing point, densities of the gas and liquid. 

 In comparing the physical constants of 

 argon with so-called permanent gases, 

 Argon belongs to the so-called "perma- 

 nent" gases and as regards difficulty in 

 liquifying it, it occupies the fourth place, 

 viz., betweeu CO and O, . Its behavior 

 in liquifaction places it nearest to oxy- 

 gen, but it differs entirely from oxygen 

 in being solidifiable; as is well known, 

 oxygen has not been made to assume a 

 solid state. Its unexpectedly low critical 

 temperature and boiling point seems to 

 have some relation to its unexpectedly 

 simple molecular constitution. For a 

 fuller abstract of this interesting subject, 

 the readers of The Alumni Journal are 

 referred to Chem. News, Feb. r, 1895, 

 p. 51. This work of Raleigh and Ram- 



