128 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



to investigations into this branch of inquiry arising from the 

 difficulty of obtaining it in sufficient quantity for experiment ; 

 and, in fact, what is known is chiefly negative. Mr. Crookes 

 submitted it to spectrum analysis, the result of which led him 

 to suppose that it consisted of a mixture of tw^o gases ; whilst 

 the experiments of Olszewski into its temperature of liquefac- 

 tion and its critical temperature and pressure seemed also to 

 indicate that it is a compound substance, but that the mixture 

 could only contain a very small proportion of another gas. 



Its leading physical properties were more easily ascer- 

 tained. It was found to be colourless and inodorous, to have 

 a density of about twenty times that of hydrogen, although it 

 is probable that this may be exceeded. It is more soluble in 

 water than oxygen or hydrogen, and therefore it is not im- 

 probable that in drinking unboiled water we mibibe a propor- 

 tionately larger quantity than we inhale in breathing. It 

 requires a very low temperature for liquefaction. Professor 

 Dewar having ascertained that it liquefies at 305° Fahr. below 

 zero, and is converted into opaque ice at 310°. These physi- 

 cal properties, however, have as yet afforded little aid in de- 

 termining its chemical nature ; but, as this question is being 

 investigated by some of the greatest chemists of the day, 

 and, amongst others, by Mendeleeff, Berthelot, and Professors 

 Dewar and Eamsay, we may expect to receive, within a 

 reasonable time, full information in respect to it. In the 

 meantime it is supposed to be a tri-atomic form of nitrogen, 

 as ozone is a bi-atomic form of oxygen ; and many circum- 

 stances already known — for example, its concurrent appear- 

 ance in nature with nitrogen, the difficulty of separating them, 

 their common inertness — exaggerated in argon — their common 

 lines in the spectra, their double spectra, and the outer 

 resemblance of their benzine compounds as shown in 

 Berthelot's experiments —are said to lend strength to this 

 hypothesis. 



The announcement recently made by Professor Eam- 

 say that he had discovered that argon is contained in a 

 mineral called cleveite, is likely to lead to a rapid increase in 

 our knowledge of its chemical character and properties. A 

 bright-yellow line in the spectrum of the sun's chromosphere 

 had long been observed with interest, and was generally 

 ascribed to an element unknown on the earth, but widely 

 spread on the sun, from which circumstance it had been called 

 helium. Now, this element was lately captured by Crookes in 

 a glass tube in the laboratory, quite unexpectedly, in the 

 course of investigations which Professor Eamsay was making 

 with a view to extracting and analysing the gas contained in 

 cleveite, said to be nitrogen. He communicated his discovery 

 to Professor Cleve, of Upsala (in whose honour the mineral had 



