at the Royal Institution, 1908-1916 757 



special object of studying its minor constituents. Had he been left 

 to himself, the Royal Institution would undoubtedly have been the 

 seat of the discovery of the inert gases in the atmosphere other than 

 argon — Lord Rayleigh's discovery— and helium, the discovery of 

 Ramsay's genius. The episode is of interest as a problem in scientific 

 ethics and is one which merits more discussion than it has received, 

 in view of the continued increase in the number of scientific workers, 

 their average lack of originality and their ever-growing tendency to 

 appropriate ideas which they have had no share in developing. It 

 may be the modern system is one that favours advance — but it is a 

 question if the gain due to such advance be sufficient to balance the 

 attendant disadvantages : the extent to which premature publication 

 has been developed, of late years, is one of its worst consequences but 

 the moral effect upon the younger workers is perhaps the worst ; the 

 decay of the courtesy and consideration characteristic of a former 

 generation is particularly lamentable. 



The following statement from the report of the lecture may be 

 reproduced here : — 



"About 70 litres of the Bath gas were condensed, certainly the 

 largest quantity of this gas ever subjected to chemical examination. 

 This was boiled off and, as by accident too much nitrogen had 

 volatihzed along with the gas, oxygen was added and the mixture 

 sparked over alkali, to get rid of the excess of nitrogen. The sample 

 of gas directly collected from the liquid nitrogen contained about 

 50 per cent, of helium. During the sparking, helium lines were well 

 marked (along with the others, the origin of which must be settled 

 later) and a vacuum tube filled with the product of the sparking 

 gave a splendid spectrum of the gas. The recorded unknown lines 

 in the Bath helium were subsequently detected along with helium in 

 the more volatile portion of liquid air. Eight months after my paper 

 to the Chemical Society and some two months after this address was 

 delivered the same material was found by Professors Ramsay and 

 Travers to exist in argon and has been recognized and named by 

 them Neon, a new element." 



In this lecture an interesting application of the vacuum vessel 

 was demonstrated showing that Pictet's conclusion was incorrect that 

 at low temperatures all substances had practically the same trans- 

 parency and that a non-conducting body became ineffective as a 

 shield against influx of heat. 



Sets of three double-walled glass vacuum tubes, as nearly identical 

 in size and shape as possible, were mounted on a common stem and 

 the hollow space in two out of the three was filled in with the 

 substances to be studied. The tubes were then thoroughly exhausted 

 —a work of great labour. 



The rate of influx of heat was measured by determining the rate 

 of evaporation of equal volumes of liquid air contained in the vessels. 



