The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1878-12-26
A Remarkable Discovery Announced
by Mr.. Norman LOckyer.
London Telegraph


By the announcement which Mr. Nor
man Lockyer has Just made to the Paris |
Academy of Science, to the effect that
he believes he has succeeded in realizing
Faraday's famous prophecy with regard
to reducing the so-called chemical ele-
ments to air, the prospect Of another
grand discovery is added to the series of
! extraordinary facts which have marked
the scientific annals of the present year.
| NJ. Dumas, the venerable and accom-
| plished French chemist, was the medium
through whom Mr.. Lockyer conveyed
these startling tidings. The sixty odd
elements, of which, according to the
school-books now in use, all terrestrial
matter is composed, are in reality, it is
! said, not elementary, but compound
bodies. Science has been deceiving
itself with mere Protean combinations
of one arch-substance. Instead of sixty
or seventy elements, the number may be
even less than the traditional four
earth, air, fire and water-which held
so long a sway, from the Aristotelian
period until the days of Robert Boyle.
In making the communication to the
Paris Academy, NJ. Dumas added that
the conclusion reached by Mr.. Lockyer
was the result of three years assiduous
research. Conscious of its extraordinary
character and of the entirely new aspect
which the discovery will give to chem
ical science, Mr.. Lockyer states that he
, will send photographs ard other details,
, which the Academy will rightly look
for with suspended belief. In the mean
while, our distinguished savant has no
| hesitation in publicly disclosing the
/ specific character of his discovery, which
. has been accomplished by the use of
| that most potent and magical of modern
: instruments of analysis, the spectre
: scope.
The honor of achieving prodlgious
| analytical success, which, if verified,
must ever be memorable in the history
of molecular physics, has for some years
/ past been an object of strenuous rivalry
e among a few of our leading scientific
4 workers. The eventual dissertation OF
the so-calied elements was confidently
y contemplated by Faraday nearly thirty
years ago, and it is not too much to say
, that the expectations entertained by
4 that eminent man gave stimulus fol
work in the laboratory which has never
i been lost by those who were privileged
- to be learners or fellow-laborers with
him. Since Faraday's time, the whole
question of the physical constitution Of
= the universe, and especially the particu
~ lar manner in which creative power may
q have gradually elaborated the presen
- cosmical order of things, has been in
:, vestlgated with zest, and, it may b'
= added, with facilities for discovery
which have lent great interest ant
10 Importance to inquiries into the ele
u mentary and primal forms Of matter
s. The apparently well-grounded belle
that the heavens afford to the view o
the astronomer the process of world-mak
ing in its various stages, has done much O
, late years to encourage the particula
u branch of research which now. seems
T. be yielding such extraordinary an
a valuable results. Mr.. Lockyer believe
"a that, in spite of the multiform aspect
In of the world in which we live, there
'n but one form of matter which is trul
III elementary. The primal element
presented to us in the shape of hydrogen
81 1t is not a little remarkable that th
he nature of hydrogen should have been
question to which the leading Frenc
an chemists have recently been devotin
y their energies. 1t is now we'll known
ne thanks to M. Picket and his Frenc
ng colleagues, that hydrogen, in its gaseou
ne form, can be, and has been, reduced
r. liquid condition. Mr.. Lockyer hin
Is self has arrived, by means of the spectr
,Iy scope, at the conclusion that hydfoge
ie- can no longer be regarded as a simp
N element. Further, he believes he hs
'e- proved that hydrogen is the one body (
which the various metals and eartl
ad that have hitherto constituted tt
er, chemists catalogue of elements a.
,as =, composed. So novel and striking an il
le' depreciation of all the phenomena
IN, animate nature, of all that we can see
"d the starry depths around us, as we'll
zee on our own globe, is difficult at fir
US sight to entertain. That the substan
'nt we have therefore, known as a sing
ar unit in the great cosmical laborato
lth should be endowed with such Prote'
zed capacities of form, is conception whi
me utterly eclipses all that poetry or myth'
cAs ogy has ever inspired, and the wor
an becomes infinitely more wonderful
ing such revelations as now seem to
GU brought within our knowledge.