The Newly Discovered Element.

Manawatu Herald, 1 February 1898, Page 4

The Newly Discovered Element.

"Argon, " the hitherto unknown element which Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ram- - say have discovered in the air, is a harmless sort of commodity, and it constitutes only about one one hundred and twentieth of the atmosphere. But that we should have bo nearly arrived at the close of the nineteenth century without even suspecting that the mixture of nitrogen and oxygen which wo have been inhaling was adulterated with anything besides new mown hay, spring flowers, salt sea breezes l and odors from oil refineries, as the New , York Tribune puts it, is an astonishing fact The principal constituents of air exist therein in the proportion of about 77 parts of nitrogen to SI of oxygen, by weight, and argon is believed to form about 1 per r cent of "atmospherio nitrogen." Hence L .eight one-thousandths of the weight of ' !the atmosphere, or about two ounces of^ p the 15 pounds pressure to the square inch, [ is due to the newly discovered element. k Lord Rayleigh was engaged for years in before he felt sure that he was f dealing with a hitherto unknown subL stance. One circumstance which to him I seemed highly significant was that nitro- |' gen isolated from the air, which is thought I to be merely a mechanical mixture, al- [ ways seemed heavier than that obtained • from chemical combinations.