774 



SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. XVII. No. 437. 



" All the world's a stage 

 And all the men and women merely players." 



It has been called the age of trusts and 

 mistrusts. In it we must realize that sci- 

 ence and its applications must face vested 

 interests ; these must be overwheLmed or its 

 universal monopolistic rights be pigeon- 

 holed by purchase. Let us realize, how- 

 ever, in this time, as Boyle has said, that 

 'men often suffer as much cold and wet 

 and dive as deep to fetch up sponges as to 

 fetch up pearls.' 



In 1788 Geyer discovered the new min- 

 eral, gadolinite, and in 1794, the Finnish 

 chemist, Gadolin, separated a new earth, or 

 oxide, in a black mineral found at Ytterby 

 near Stockholm, and called it yttria. In 

 1803 another Scandinavian mineral, then 

 known as 'the heavy stone of Bastnas,' or 

 cerite, was discovered by Berzelius and 

 Hisinger and Klaproth in Germany. 



In 1839 Mosander discovered lanthanum 

 in this earth. Three years later he resolved 

 it into two elements, one giving a white 

 oxide and the other a pink, namely true 

 lanthanum and didymium. Scheerer noted 

 that yttria, which is white when heated in 

 a closed vessel, becomes yellow when heated 

 exposed to the air. He, in consequence, 

 assumed that it was a complex substance 

 and the year following (1843) Mosander 

 proved that it could be resolved into three 

 earths, one being colorless (true yttria), 

 the second rose-colored (terbia), and the 

 third (erbia) giving colored salts, but a 

 deep yellow peroxide. 



H. Rose in 1839 analyzed samarskite and 

 shoAved it to be a columbo-tantalate of iron 

 and calcium on the one hand and yttrium 

 and cerium mainly on the other. Satis- 

 factory analyses of this mineral, however, 

 were not had for almost a half-century 

 (Swallow, Allen and Smith), Avhen its com- 

 paratively abundant occurrence was noted 

 in North Carolina. 



Shortly after the discovery of the spec- 

 troscope, Gladstone in 1859 observed the 

 surprising fact that certain substances gave 

 absorption spectra, especially didymium. 

 This constituted the first important and is 

 now, perhaps, the most valuable criterion 

 in the investigations of many of the rare 

 earths. 



In 1860, Berlin, by means of partial 

 decomposition of the fused nitrates, showed 

 the presence of but two earths where Mos- 

 ander had reported three, namely, yttria, as 

 given above, and a rose-colored body, which 

 was termed erbia. A reversal of names 

 occurred, for two years later Bahr observed 

 the characteristic absorption spectrum of 

 erbia and Delafontaine found it in Gado- 

 lin 's yttria and Mosander 's yellow perox- 

 ide. The typical oxide was assumed to be 

 RO, and it remained for Mendeleeff in the 

 enunciation of the Periodic Law (1870) 

 to give lanthanum the present accepted 

 formula for its oxide, LasOg. 



These elements were obtained as metals 

 — in the then accepted pure form — and Hil- 

 lebrand and Norton determined the specific 

 heats, which data have aided subsequent 

 workers materially. These determinations, 

 in the light of knowledge gained within 

 recent years, possess a quondam value, 

 however much care and energy may have 

 been expended in securing them. 



In 1878 Delafontaine stated that samars- 

 kite contained much terbia. He separated 

 a more solublp formate and announced the 

 new element philippium, which Roscoe, al- 

 though he noted band ^ 450, proved to be 

 a mixture of yttrium and terbium. This 

 band in reality belongs to dysprosium, dis- 

 covered by Lecoq de Boisbaudran. The 

 same year Delafontaine, having found a 

 mare's nest in samarskite, from which 

 Mosander separated erbium, announced 

 decipium. The absorption bands attrib- 

 uted to this element wei-e A 416 and A 478, 



