The Wadsworth dispatch. [volume] (Wadsworth, Nev.) 1892-1899, 1895-08-31
THE SEVENTY ELEMENTS,
Chemistry Has Found Them, but Does Not
Know What They Are.

Know What They Are.
What are the elements? Those ingre-
dents of which every natural substance
Is ultimately composed and into which
1t may be resolved. Beings animate and
lnanimate, the earth beneath our feet,
the stars revealed to us by the telescope,
the minutest microbia which almost es-
cape detection by cur most improved
microscope, all cOsl1ist Of the elements.
They make UP ali matter. They may be
solid, liquid CT gaseous, perhaps even
ultragaseous; they may exist i'll "a state
OF absolute purity or III a state Of mix
ture or combination, but we cannot de-
stroy them, form them again or trans
mute into another. They differ
greatly IN their properties, but still they
have certain features il common. We
know solne 10 kinds Of clements, appar-
entity distinct. They occupy space, and
all possess weight and inertia. They are
the possible forms which matter, as we
at present know it, assumes, and in
some directions they are the present
limits of our know ledge of nature.
The name ''elements' has at differ
ent times been applied in very different
ways. The ancient philosophers OF
Greece assumed the existence Of four
elements-viz, earth, air, water and
fire-but they used these words in a
different sense from ours. Their earth
was the principle of solidity, their wa
ter that Of liquidity, their air that of vol
ability or gaseity, and their fire might
stand for energy-not a substance, but a
force.
The alchemists had three clements
sulphur, salt and mercury-but their
sulphur was not our sulphur, but a mys-
teal principle Of infammability, their
mercury was not our mercury, but a
supposed principle Of metalleity, and
their salt meant solubility.
A little later the chemists of the
eighteenth century conjured up an ele-
ment which they named phlogiston, by
which they sought to explain almost all
chemical phenomena. Tho modern idea
of force and energy is not greatly differ
ent from that which underlay the term
phlogiston.
IN lOhCth CIlc1l1Cu1 ClClu6ulS udf0
in them nothing metaphysical and mys-
tical. They are simply those bodies
which never diminish in weight as a
consequence of any chemical reaction.
We a add to them, but we can take
nothing away from them. 1t must not,
however, be rashly inferred hat our ell
ements are absolutely incapable of de-
composition.
All that we are entitled to say is sim
ply that hitherto we have not been able
to decompOse them. Tomorrow we may
possibly find Il method by which they
may be resolved into something sim
pier. Indeed a variety of considerations
lead us to suppose that such will ulti-
Inately be the case. To find out these
absolute elements should be the grand
goal of modern chemistry.
What is an element? How and where
are we to dTaw the line? There seem
TO be different GRADES in the elementary
hierarchy. Chlorine and bromine differ
from each other much less widely than
does either Of them with oxygen, po-
tassium or iron. Nickel and cobalt are
still closer TO each other, and had the
compounds of these two elements been
alike in color instead Of being almost
mutually Complementary their distinct
character might scarcely yet have passed
beyond the sphere Of controversy. But
If we come to the clements of the rare
earths, we no longer stand Oh firm
ground. The dividing line-e. g., be-
tween neodymium and praseodymium-
depends on no broad principles. And
how is IL then with the elemental or
metaelemental bodies whose ex-
lstence has been recently made known
by Kruss and Nilsson? Here it becomes
scarcely possible to draw any definite
line. The different groups shade off SO
imperceptibly into each other that we
can not find a definite boundary. Slight
chemical differences are entitled to be
and also slight physical diff
.ferences, but we are soon confronted
with the question, What is chemical
and what is physical? Can we grant
ranks to n substance which
differs from another by decided color
and spectroscopic behavior and
still refuse it to another substance
whose claim is IA slight, though decided,
difference-in excess or i'll deficiency
as basic character? A new group-a sort
suspense group-seems to be the most
reasonable means CT avoiding the diff
and hence my suggestion Of meta
elements, into which it appears likely
many of the well recognized ele-
ments are receivable, has been generally
accepted by chemists. Exchange.