Chemistry and Physics. 431 



ide. The author compares this action of the electric discharge to 

 the interactions of water and carbon dioxide in plants. Similar 

 interesting results were obtained with the alcohols and ethers, 

 ethyl alcohol giving a solid C 10 H 20 N 4 O 5 . — C. H., cxxvi, 561, 567, 

 609, 616, February, 1898. g. f. b. 



5. On a New Gas. — At the Boston meeting of the American As- 

 sociation, C. F. Brush announced the discovery of a new gas, a 

 constituent of the atmosphere and presumably elementary. Its 

 chief characteristic is its enormous heat conductivity at low pres- 

 sures.- In studying the heat conductivity of several gases in high 

 vacua, early in 1897, he had observed that pulverized glass when 

 heated evolved a considerable quantity of absorbed gas. And mak- 

 ing use of his heat-conductivity method to detect the hydrogen 

 present, he was surprised to find that at 36 millionths pressure the 

 residual gas conducted heat twice as well as air and nearly as 

 well as hydrogen ; while at 3*8 millionths it conducted seven times, 

 at 1*6 millionths, fourteen times, and at 0-96 millionth, 20 times 

 as well. Under this latter pressure the time taken for the ther- 

 mometer to cool from 15° to 10° was only 177 seconds; pure 

 hydrogen requiring 288 seconds. Upon exposure to the air the 

 glass reabsorbed the new gas. Upon subsequent investigation 

 other porous materials were found to answer the same purpose. 

 Charcoal made from pine-wood sawdust and highly heated 

 evolved the new gas. Fine white siliceous sand when heated in 

 vacuo also gave it, the conductivity at the pressure of 0*12 of a 

 millionth being 42 times that of hydrogen. To free this new gas 

 from the gases mixed w r ith it, diffusion through a treated porce- 

 lain tube was resorted to. Under a pressure of l'3 mm , about 19 cc 

 of gas diffused per hour. And after 36 hours the diffused gas being 

 tested showed at 6 millionths a higher conductivity than the speci- 

 men last mentioned for the same pressure ; the heat conductivity of 

 air therefore seems increased a hundred times, at very low pres- 

 sure, by one diffusion. Since even when mixed with other gases, 

 the heat conductivity of the new gas at very low pressures is 100 

 times that of hydrogen, the author thinks that when pure it may 

 become a thousand times greater. Supposing the molecular 

 speed to be proportional to the heat conductivity, the molecular 

 speed of the new gas would be at least 100 times that of hydro- 

 gen, or 105 miles per second. Moreover as the molecular veloci- 

 ties vary inversely as the square root of the densities, the density 

 of the new gas is only the 10,000th part of that of hydrogen or 

 the 144,000th part of that of air. It should therefore extend 

 144,000 times as high as the air and hence must extend indefinitely 

 into space. If, as is probable, less than a millionth of it is con- 

 tained in the atmosphere, then it seems likely "that it not only 

 extends far beyond the atmosphere but fills all celestial space at 

 a very small pressure." Hence the author, assuming the new gas 

 to be elementary, has given it the name "Aetherion," and sup- 

 poses its molecule to be monatomic. He ventures the conjecture 

 that it will be found to be a mixture of three or more gases, all 



