Kansas University Weekly.
73
Dr. Gunsaulus Coming.
It is officially announced that Dr. F. W. Gunsaulus, of Chicago, will deliver the Commencement Day address at the University. The addresses which it has heretofore been customary for members of the graduating class to deliver upon similar occasions, will be dispensed with. The Senior class as well as other members of the University are to be congratulated upon this change.
Concerning Argon and Helium.
The elements, argon and helium, discovered some months ago, are probaly attracting as much if not more attention in the scientific world than the Roentgen process of photography. The way in which these elements were discovered is very interesting and shows the great accuracy of scientific experiment. Lord Rayleigh, a physicist in London for a number of years had been determining with great delicacy of measurement the specific gravities of permanent gases. In calculating the specific gravity of nitrogen, he found that the specific gravity of nitrogen taken from the air was slightly different from the specific gravity of nitrogen taken from a chemical compound. The air nitrogen was invariably a little heavier than the chemical nitrogen. The only conclusion to be drawn was that there was something in air nitrogen heavier than nitrogen itself. This was the clue that led to the discovery of argon.
As it was very hard to isolate this mysterious gas from nitrogen, Lord Rayleigh called to his aid Prof. Ramsay, a London chemist of distinction, with whom he continued the investigation.
Each scientist, however, worked separately and with a different method. Lord Rayleigh burned
up air nitrogen with a series of electric sparks, while Prof. Ramsay removed the nitrogen by passing air nitrogen over red-hot magnesium. Both found argon—a remarkably indifferent gas,194-10 times heavier than hydrogen and so far as is known will not combine chemically with any other element. It composes about one per cent of the atmosphere. Its spectrum is very beautiful, having especially distinctive lines.
Prof. Ramsay, while searching for argon in chemical compounds, discovered another element, helium. In the spectrum of the nitrogen obtained from the mineral clevite, he noticed a brilliant yellow line corresponding exactly to a line in the solar spectrum ascribed by Herschel in 1868 to a hypothetical element, helium. The discovery of an element in the sun known before it is known upon earth, illustrates very beautifully the certainty of scientific conclusions.
Helium, next to hydrogen, is the lightest gas known, produces a bright, brilliant, beautiful spectrum and requires a greater degree of cold for its liquefaction than any other element.
Prof. E. C. Franklin has prepared, in the chemical labortory, both of these elements and has tubes containing them which can be examined by any one.
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