Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1895-07-25
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THE SEVENTY ELEMENTS.
Chemistry Has Found Them. but Does Not
Know What They Are.

l chemistry Has Round Them, Out boes NUt
Know What They Arc.
/ What are the elements? Those ingre-
dients of which every natural substance
is ultimately composed and into which
it may be resolved. Beings animate and
inanimate, the earth beneath our feet,
the stars revealed TO us by the telescope,
the minutest microbia which almost es-
cape detection by our most improved
microscope, all consist of the elements.
They make up all matter. They may be
solid, liquid or gaseous, perhaps even
ultragaseous; they may exist III state
of absolute purity or i'll state of mix
| ture or combination, but we cannot de-
stroy them, form them again or trans
mute one into another. They differ
greatly i'll their properties, but still they
have certain features III common. We
know some 20 kinds Of elements, appar-
emily 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 III
some directions they are the present
limits of our knowledge 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 i'll u
| 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 IA substance, but a
force.
The alchemists had three elements
sulphur, salt and mercury-but their
sulphur was not our sulphur, but mys-
tical principle OF inf1ammability, 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 coniured up an ele-
ment which they named phlogiston, by
which they sought to explain almost all
chemical phenomena. The modern idea
of force and energy is not greatly differ
ent from that which underlay the term
| phlogiston.
! The modern chemical elements have
| in them nothing metaphysical and mys-
teal They are simply those bodies
which never diminish i'll weight as u
consequence Of any chemical reaction.
We can add to them, but we can take
| nothing away from them 1t must not,
however, be rashly inferred that 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 method by which they
may be resolved into something SIM
pier. Indeed variety Of considerations
lead rs TO suppose that such will ulti-
mately be tie case. To find ont these
absolute elements should be the grand
| goal of modern chemistry.
What is an element? How and where
are we to draw the line: There seem
| to be different grades in the elementary
| hierarchy. Chlorine and hromine differ
| from each other much less widely than
| does either of them with oxygen, POI
| tassium on iron. Nickel and cobalt are
still closer to each other. and had the
compounds Of these two ele,aents 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 on firm
ground. The dividing line-e. q, be-
/ tween neodymium and praseodymiu1n--
depends on no broad principles. And
how is it then with the elemental or
rather metaelemental bodies whose ex-
istence has been recently made known
| by Kruss and Nilsson. Here ii becomes
scarcely possible to draw any definite
line. The different groups shade off so
| iluperceptibly into each other that we
can not find definite boundary. Slight
chemical differences are entitled to be
admitted and also slight physical diff
| ferenccs, but we are soon confronted
with the question, What III chemical
and what is physical? Can We grant
elemental ranks to one substance which
differs from another by decided color
reactions and spectloscopic behavior and
still refuse it to another substance
whose claim is slight, though decided,
| difference--in excess or III deficiency
| as basic character? A new group-a sort
! of suspense group--seems to he the most
reasonable means Of avoiding the diff
Guilty, and hence my suggestion Of meta
elements, into which it appears likely
that many Of the well recognized Gle
ments are receivable, has been generally
accepted by chemists Exchange
i
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