482 



NATURE 



[August io, 19 i6 



SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



THE first scientific words, probably, ever 

 printed from the pen of Sir William Ramsay 

 read curiously now that the full chapter of his 

 writings is closed. They served to introduce his 

 career, and may, with an unexpected aptness, be 

 recalled at its close. Though he left early, 

 he left behind much that has already become a 

 permanent part of the common heritage of science, 

 well known to all. On this, once again for a 

 moment, those now mourning his sad and untimely 

 death may linger, loth to say farewell. 



The words introduce his thesis for the doc- 

 torate at Tubingen under Fittig in 1872: "To 

 determine the constitution of chemical compounds 

 has been the endeavour of chemists ever since the 

 mere discovery of new bodies has ceased to 

 engross their chief attention." Little could the 

 youth of nineteen then have tasted of the joys of 

 discovery that he could so talk of " mere " dis- 

 covery. Before him the unknown future held a 

 career of discovery which was to raise him to an 

 unchallenged pinnacle among his colleagues, not 

 of new compounds, but of a whole family of new 

 elements, unsuspected even though the Periodic 

 Law had long since called their roll, and utterly 

 different, in the entire negation of their chemical 

 properties, from any kind of matter previously 

 known; Yet fundamentally true the random 

 words have proved themselves, even in connection 

 with so great advances, in that crescendo of scien- 

 tific accomplishment which heralded the coming of 

 another century. It is no longer these discoveries 

 that engross, but the problems of constitution to 

 which they led up and contributed — no longer, 

 however, the problem of the constitution of chemi- 

 cal compounds, but the key problem of all physical 

 science and of materialistic philosophy, the prob- 

 lem of the constitution of the elements and the 

 structure of the atom. 



Ramsay, whatever had been his youth, training, 

 or after circumstances, would never have been 

 content to think the thoughts of others, nor to 

 confine himself to the paths that they had rough- 

 hewn. His earlier work in physical chemistry — the 

 determination of the molecular weight of liquids 

 from their surface-tension with Shields, his work 

 on accurate vapour density measurements, and his 

 studies of vapour pressure with Young — already 

 showed his disposition to stray from the well- 

 beaten track. But the clue to the existence of a 

 new gas in the atmosphere, found by Lord Ray- 

 leigh in the discrepancy between the density of 

 atmospheric nitrogen and that prepared from 

 compKDunds, started him off definitely into the 

 trackless wild and gave his exceptional gifts full 

 and free scope. Every faculty is now at its best, 

 and in the field of chemistry so opened up little 

 nelp is forthcoming from the current methods of 

 experiment and deduction. In such an apparently 

 trivial experimental detail, for example, as the 

 choice of a suitable lubricant for taps and 

 ground joints might lie the difference between mas- 

 tery and total failure. Pertinacity, too, is called 

 for to pursue a uniform series of negative results 

 NO. 2441, VOL. 97] 



in the search for positive chemical properties of 

 the new gases until the sum of the apparent 

 failures should unite in a single satisfying positive 

 conclusion, that the gases were non-valent, not 

 merely exceptionally difficult to bring into com- 

 bination. Lastly, new methods of reasoning from 

 the physical qualities, in the absence of chemical, 

 must be brought to l>ear before the atomic weight 

 of these elements can be assigned and they can 

 take their proi>er place in the scheme of elements. 



Novel as it all appeared, fitting place was found 

 for Ramsay's love of the early history of his sub- 

 ject a:nd the delight he took in the work of the 

 early pioneers. After a century's oblivion, the 

 remarkable experiment of Cavendish on the spark- 

 ing of air over alkalis was re-discovered, and 

 another, and by no means the least, tribute so paid 

 to the foresight of this remarkable man. Since 

 then this same experiment has had on the indus- 

 trial and practical side, in the fixation of atmo- 

 spheric nitrogen, as remarkable a sequel as it 

 received at the hands of Lord Rayleigh and Sir 

 William Ramsay in the discovery of argon. 



It is customary to regard the next step, which 

 was essentially Ramsay's alone, the discovery of 

 helium, as a very natural and direct development 

 of his earlier work with Lord Rayleigh on argon. 

 This is only partially true. In one sense the dis- 

 covery of helium was entirely distinct ; for, though, 

 like the other inert gases, it exists in the atmo- 

 sphere, unlike all the others it was not discovered 

 there. The name, of course, recalls the long arm 

 of scientific method and the .discovery of the chief 

 of its spectrum lines in the spectrum of the sun's 

 chromosphere by Lockyer and Frankland in 1868. 

 By the way,' would it not be a graceful tribute to 

 Ramsay, and also a step in the right direction of a 

 consistent nomenclature, to rechristen this gas 

 "helion," so making it correspond with the other 

 members of the family, argon, neon, krypton, 

 xenon, and, by chance, the three isotopic radio- 

 active emanations? j 



When Ramsay came upon this gas for the first! 

 time, as it were, face to face in the gases froirj 

 the uranium minerals which Hillebrand ha<| 

 thought to be nitrogen, recognised its signature 

 in the X of its D3 line, and found that it was onl} 

 present in minerals containing uranium anc 

 thorium, he broke, unawares, new ground in ; 

 field totally unconnected with that hitherto cr 

 tivated for argon. His proof that it possesst 

 the same absolute lack of chemical combinii 

 power, his immediate recognition of the fact th 

 he had found a second member of what was a ne 

 family of elements of y/hich probably mo: i 

 existed, and the successful separation of these 

 and also helium itself, from the atmosphere i! 

 collaboration with Travers, brought back th 

 research into its former course. The significant 

 of the remarkable fact that helium alone of th 

 inert gases existed otherwise than in a free stat 

 in the atmosphere, and that, in spite of its toti 

 lack of combining power, it was found pent u 

 somehow in uranium and thorium minerals, wa 

 grasped only later by others. But it was essei 

 tlally the starting point of a new departure whic 



