The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1894-08-21
A NEW GAS DISCOVERED.
It Forms Per Cent. of Common Air,
but Has Hitherto Evaded Detection.
From the New York Sun

but has 6ltherto Evaded Detection.
From the New York sun.
London. Aug. 1S.-The scientific sensa.
ton of the year is the announcement
made to the British association at Oxford
this week that a new gas has been discov.
cred in the atmosphere. The great as
sembIy of the worlds savants has felt as
near an approach to excitement over the
astonishing news as men of science ever
allow themselves 10 reach. Lord Raw.
leigh and Prof. Ramsay are the honored
discoveries of what they believe is the
new element in chemistry. The Quail
titles of this strange substance are pecu-
liar. Although it is said to form chem
ically. the proportion of per cent of
common air, nobody suspected its exist
ence until about three weeks ago. The
experimehter found that nitrogen OBJ
tanned from air has a different density
from that of the same gas obtained from
other sources. Then they treated what
they supposed was pure nitrogen from
the atmosphere with magnesium The
nitrogen was absorbed, but the residue
remained. This mysterious remainder
was tested and proved 10 be a dense and
remarkably inert gas p times heavier
than hydrogen and 80 per cent. heavier
than nitrogen. The spectrum was new.
showing a single blue line much more in
tense than the corresponding line in the
nitrogen spectrum.
The discoveries kept the result of the
investigation secret in order to fulfill the
conditions of the prize offered through
the Smithsonian Institution for the most
important scientific discovery They
have succeeded thus far in accommodating
only a quarter of pint of the new gas.
Prof Dewar, the great expert in all at
mospheric affairs, is plainly skeptical
about the identity of the new gas He
has found, when liquefyiny air, that the
product is always clouded bY a white de,
posit, which he supposed was solid car
bonic acid and other impurities. 1t may
be, he says, that this is the solid form OF
| the new gas, but it forms far less than
per cent. The substance must have ex-
actly the same boiling point as either
oxygen or nitrogen, otherwise he would
have been sure TO detect it in his expert
ments in solidifying air
The general belief is, however that the
| new gas is really new. or an allotropiC
form of nitrogen, which does not exist in
| appreciable quantities in ordinary atmos
| phere, but which was produced by the
| discoveries experiments, Just as ozone is
produced by the action of electricity on
oxygen.
Other bits of news of popular interest
| in the various departments of the scien-
tlfic world have been announced at the
meetings of the association 1t has been
| long known that the ,earth's axis varies
in an irregular way as regards its rela
ton to the fixed objects in space: but
| Prof. Forster. announces as a result OF
careful observations by agents of the In
| ternational Geodetic Union, that the
| eartn's axis is bit loose, as regards the
globe itself. The effect is that the North
pole wabbles slightly. The variation in
| position is not over fifty feet however. Sc
there is no danger that any explorers who
have gone to the arctic regions without
/ Prof. Eorstef's warning will get hurt by
| going too near.
Some queer discoveries by the Prince
| OF Monaco during his deep-sea dredging
| IN the Atlantic and Mediterranean in the
| present summer were made known He
! found that at great depths, where it was
supposed nothing could live, life is abund-
| ant. Many black ground sharks of a
| species supposed to be extremely rare
were caught at depth of mile and a
| half Some fishes not identified were
| found at depth of more than two miles.
| Several strange discoveries regarding
| prehistoric man were announced The
| remains recently afound, in Switzerland
show the existence in the neolithic age of
a race of pygmies in Europe. Herr Masch a
has unearthed within a few days in Mo-
ravia many remains of mammoths, and
with them the skeletons OF a whole
human family almost gigantic in size.
The discovery seems to settle the dis
| puted point whether nan was co-exist-
ent with the mammoth
An explorer in Guatemala reported the
! discovery in an ancient mound in that
country of many small Jars each con
tanning the remains of little finger from
| the human hand. 1t is supposed to have
| been the custom of mourners in some pre-
| historic race to make this sacrifice