110 



CHEMISTRY. (CHEMICAL THEORY.) 



telegraph lines within the colony. In January, 

 1898, the Portuguese force in Gasaland had a con- 

 flict with the natives on the Limpopo, who had 

 captured a party of soldiers that was sent to arrest 

 an unruly chief. Major Mousinho de Albuquerque 

 was succeeded as Governor by Col. Ferreira in the 

 autumn. Arrangements were made for the sale of 

 Delagoa Bay to Great Britain in order to relieve the 

 Portuguese colony from financial embarrassment. 

 Germany recognized the British right of pre- 

 emption, having come to a general understanding 

 with England in regard to the African question. 

 The impending decision of the Swiss arbitrators in 

 the matter of the seizure by the Portuguese Gov- 

 ernment of the Delagoa Bay liailroad made the sale 

 of the port and railroad almost a necessity, the 

 arbitrators being expected to award over 1,000,000 

 1. 1 tin- American claimant, the widow of Col. 

 Edward McMurdo, the original promoter and chief 

 owner of the railroad. 



CHEMISTRY. Chemical Theory. In 1888, 

 Mr. William Crookes, presenting a theory of the 

 generation of the elements (in accordance with the 

 periodical system) by successive evolutions, devised 

 a graphic representation of the process, in which 

 he supposed the space projection of the scheme to 

 be spiral. In this figure the elements were placed 

 along the spiral line in the order of their atomic 

 weights, and so fitted themselves that the successive 

 members of each group fell, as they should, one 

 beneath another, in the line of an ordinate drawn 

 vertically across the spiral. In order to find places 

 for the new elements, argon, helium, and krypton, 

 Mr. Crookes has modified his figure and made it, 

 instead of a plain spiral, to run in the form of a 

 succession of figure 8s. Such a figure will result 

 from three very simple simultaneous motions (of the 

 supposed primal matter) : an oscillation to and fro 

 (suppose east and west) ; an oscillation at right 

 angles to the former (suppose north and south) ; 

 and a motion at right angles to these two (suppose 

 downward), which, in its simplest form, would be 

 with unvarying velocity. " Let me suppose," he says, 

 " that at the birth of the elements, as we now know 

 them, the action of the vis generatrix might be dia- 

 grammatically represented by a journey fo and fro 

 in cycles along a figure-of-eight path, while, simul- 

 taneously, time is living on, and some circumstance 

 by which the element-forming cause is conditioned 

 (e. g., temperature) is declining (variations which I 

 have endeavored to represent by the downward 

 slope). The result of the first cycle may be repre- 

 sented in the diagram by supposing that the un- 

 known formative cause has scattered along its 

 journey the groupings now called hydrogen, lith- 

 ium, glucinum, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, 

 fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, 

 phosphorus, sulphur, and chlorine. But the swing 

 of the pendulum is not arrested at the end of the 

 first round. It still proceeds on its journey, and had 

 the conditions remained constant, the next element- 

 ary grouping generated would again be lithium, 

 and the original cycle would eternally reappear, 

 and again the same fourteen elements. But the 

 conditions are not quite the same. Those repre- 

 sented by the two neutrally rectangular horizontal 

 components of the motion (say chemical and elec- 

 trical energy) are not materially modified ; that to 

 which the vertical component corresponds has le>*- 

 cncd. and so, instead of lithium being repeated by 

 lithium, the grouping which forms the commence- 

 ment of the second cycle is not lithium, but its lin- 

 eal descendant, i*>ta'ssium. It is seen that each 

 coil of the lemniscate. track crosses the neutral line 

 (the vertical joining the central points of the 8s) at 

 lower and lower points. This line is neutral as to 

 electricity, and neutral as to chemical action. 



Electro-positive elements are generated on the 

 northerly or retreating half of the swing, and 

 electro-negative elements on the southerly or ap- 

 proaching half. Chemical atomicity is governed 

 by distance from the central point of neutrality, 

 monatomic elements being one remove from it, 

 diatomic elements two removes," etc. The newly 

 discovered inert elements, according to this scheme, 

 fall into places as they stand on the neutral line : 

 'Helium, with an atomic weight of 4, fits into the 

 neutral position between hydrogen and lithium ; 

 argon, with an atomic weight of about 40, natu- 

 rally falls into the neutral position between chlorine 

 and potassium ; while krypton, with an atomic 

 weight of about 80, will find a place between 

 bromine and rubidium. Of the later discovered 

 elements, neon, with an atomic weight of about 22, 

 may fall into the neutral position between fluorine 

 and sodium ; while metargon. with an atomic 

 weight of about 40, may share the third neutral 

 position with argon. 



An attempt has been made by W. L. T. Addison 

 to deduce atom forms from the crystalline modifi- 

 cations of the elements. Mitscherlich had ob- 

 served that similar chemical compounds had the 

 same forms, and could intercrystallize in the same 

 crystals. Thus, calcium, magnesium, manganese, 

 ferrous and zinc carbonates crystallize and inter- 

 crystallize in rhombohedra of apparently the same 

 proportions. Form is thus consequent on chemical 

 grouping and is a function of the groups of atoms. 

 There is in the carbonate group, the author affirms, 

 a central atom, carbon, about which the other atoms 

 are grouped ; and these outer atoms are the outer 

 portions of the molecule, or those of easiest and 

 first contact. The grouping is at four attractive 

 places, and the form of the crystal being constant, 

 the form of the molecule and the position of those 

 areas of attraction must also be constant. The 

 author discusses in considerable detail the form 

 properties of the carbon crystal, and also those of 

 the crystals of a number of other substances, draw- 

 ing therefrom illustrations of his theory ; and in- 

 fers that malleability has a coincidence with atomic 

 forms, permitting of interatomic mobility in their 

 arrangement. Thus the atoms of carbon are of 

 regular tetrahedral form, and any loose solid angle 

 is as an apex to a tripod of equal limbs. Hence 

 the stability of form and the rigidity of the dia- 

 mond. If one angle of an aluminum atom becomes 

 free, it may, unless checked by some other atom, 

 rotate circularly about aline joiningthe two remain- 

 ing angles. Thus aluminum shows a marked inter- 

 atomic mobility by its malleability and its tendency 

 to a variable crystalline form. If, in an atom of 

 an element in Group II. Mendeleff's table, one of its 

 areas of attraction be free, it may, unless checked by 

 some other atom, rotate spherically about its station* 

 ary area of attraction. The interatomic mobility of 

 such elements is shown by their increase of mallea- 

 bility over the elements of Group III. The inter- 

 atomic mobility and malleability of the elements of 

 Group I are increased over those of Group II by a 

 joint in their rod form. Another factor in inter- 

 atomic mobility is intensity of attraction. If chem- 

 ical and cry atal attractions be different manifesta- 

 tions of the same attraction, then, with the decrease 

 of chemical affinity, there will be a decrease of rigid- 

 ity and stability of form, with an increase of inter- 

 atomic mobility and malleability. The relations 

 described are well shown in the following compar- 

 isons : The diamond, very crystalline and hard; 

 tin, malleable, breaking with crystalline structure ; 

 lead, soft and malleable; iron, nickel, and cobalt, 

 brittle as compared with platinum ; magnesium, 

 zinc, cadmium, and mercury, increasing in softness 

 with increase of atomic weight and decrease of 



