TWO NEW METALS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1773, 25 October 1879, Page 3

TWO NEW METALS.

The discovery of two new metals is announced, named Samarium and Norwegian. Paradoxical as it mny sound to speak of the finding and christening of a hitherto unknown metal before it has been cither sean or handled, yet such is the case with Samarium. As happened in the instance of the metal Gallium, it has first becomo known to science by means of the spectrum analysis alone ; nor can it be doubted that in the verification of its existence by the senses ib will in due time follow the same precedeut. It is well known that by means of the characteristic rays which are seen in the luminous spect-um produced by the combustion of any substance it is possible to single out tho known or unknown bodies which enter into tho combination. As are the rays, such are elements producing them. When rays are found answering to no substance already catalogued, the existence of some new body is naturally inferred from the fact. That was how Gallium was first brought to light, and now we have a like history for Samarium. M. liecoq de Boisbaudran, who has greatly distinguished himself by bis researches in this branch oi science, found, as he was examining a mineral known under the name of Samarkite, an emission of unfamiliar rays. He has inferred thence the existence in this mineral of a new metal which he has accordingly named Samarium, and all he hag bow to

do is to isolate iC from the other elements with which it is as yot combined. This has already been done for the other new metal, Norwegium, patriotically so named after his fatherland by its disooverer, Professor Tellef ■ Dahll, of the University of Norway, who detected it in a metallic compound of arsenic and nickel. The professor has even determined the principal properties of the now metal, which he describes as being white, slightly malleable, of about the hardness of copper, and fusible at a dull red heat. Its density is ropreßented by 9 44:, and its chemical equivalent is 145.