TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION B. Tae 
done by steam at about 50 lb. pressure. The boiling tanks are connected in 
series of six, so as to allow of proper lixiviation, The liquor of the tanks is run 
off at 112°Tw. It then contains about 80 lb. of nitrate to the cubic foot, of 
which it deposits 40 lb. at 25°C. The mother liquor, containing sometimes over 
2 grammes of iodine to the litre,is pumped up to the iodine house, where it is 
treated with bisulphate of soda, and, after the deposition of the iodine, is, of 
course, used over again in the solution of the nitrate. 
The total production of nitrate from June 1885 to June 1886 in Chili was 
1,218,000 tons. 
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 21. 
The following Papers and Report were read :— 
1. On Helium. By Professor W. Ramsay, /.R.S. 
2. On the Discovery of Argon in the Water of an Austrian Well. 
By Professor Max BAMBERGER. 
In the year 1853 Ragsky examined the gas of a spring in Peschtoldsdorf, near 
Vienna, and obtained the following results :— 
Volume per cent. 
Oxygen . . . : . . ° : 30 
Carbonic acid . ' E : : : A . La 
Marsh gas 2 - A E = 6 5 > 15 
Nitrogen . c . : = 5 < > - 93:8 
100-0 
Last year the author made a new analysis of this gas, which showed figures 
but little deviating from the above-mentioned analysis. 
After argon had been discovered by Rayleigh and Ramsay, it was probable 
that this gas, consisting almost entirely of nitrogen, also contained argon, 
To determine this, a larger quantity of the gas (about 12 litres) was collected 
and, for further examination, was dried by sulphuric acid and chloride of calcium. 
The gas was passed through a glowing tube, which was half filled with copper 
netting, half with oxide of copper. 
Leaving this tube, the gas had to pass through two soda lime and two calcium 
chloride conductors, in order to absorb the water formed, and was afterwards 
passed over quicksilver into a gasometer of Ehrenberg. 
In order to remove the nitrogen, glowing magnesium was used in an apparatus, 
which in principle is similar to that of Schlésing fils. 
It was found of considerable advantage to use three glowing tubes with mag- 
nesium. Under these circumstances an experiment which was carried out with 
about two litres of the gas took seven hours before the whole of the nitrogen was 
absorbed, and for a long time a high pressure on the manometer was to be 
observed. Consequently the gas in the apparatus was led off into an eudiometer. 
Now the gas containing the supposed argon, with traces of nitrogen and hydrogen, 
was freed from these gases by known methods. 
After an experiment, it was found that the gas thus obtained was mixed with 
a large quanity of hydrogen. The original gas having been absolutely dry, the 
hydrogen could have had its origin in the magnesium only, as this material was 
cleaned by distillation in a stream of hydrogen, at which operation considerable 
quantities of this gas are absorbed (after Dumas). 
In another experiment a dry tube filled with pentoxide of phosphorus was 
introduced into the hot conductor, to remove the hydrogen formed in the mag- 
nesium tube by oxidising it with copper oxide and absorbing the water formed. 
