60 ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LIFE 



discovered the argon group of gases in the 

 earth's atmosphere, he was engaged in a 

 search amongst minerals for evidences of such 

 gases, or any new members of the group, 

 occluded or fixed in the minerals. In the 

 course of his investigations, he undertook 

 the examination of a mineral called cleveite, 

 which, when heated, gave off a mixture of 

 gases. When a minute amount of this gas 

 was introduced into a vacuum tube, sparked 

 with an electric coil and the spectrum of the 

 spark examined, there were actually found in 

 the exact positions the characteristic lines of 

 Lockyer's celestial helium. So, for the first 

 time, an element was discovered in the heavens 

 and then found later upon earth. 



The next triumph was the joint discovery 

 by Ramsay and Soddy that when radium is 

 undergoing spontaneous disintegration, the 

 alpha particles are nothing more than charged 

 helium which had previously formed a portion 

 of elemental radium. 



In the present year Ramsay and Collie have 

 shown that helium, along with another gas of 

 the argon group, called neon, appears after 

 long continued action of X-ray bulbs, and 

 accumulates in the glass of the bulbs where the 

 radio-active matter strikes the glass. The 

 glass at such places also turns a beautiful 



