Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1916-08-10
Sir William Ramsay
BY Frederic J. Haskin

existence, belongs peculiarly to the
science Of the twentieth century.
which abandons the old idea that
science is concerned only with things
that can be weighed and measured.
and plunged boldly with its methods Of
exactitude into the realm formerly
given over to metaphysics and phil-
osophy The other achievement for
which Sir William is world famous
however, belongs rather to the old
school of discovery--probably 1t VIII
be the last Of it's kind that the last
century was so rich In. =.
Sir William Ramsay may be called
the first man to know the truth about
the air we breathe. Ever since the
dawn of time humanity has lived IN
this familiar atmosphere, for the last
century and more, the air has been the
I, object of the keenest expert study. 1t
was liquifled, analysed, the laws Of its
expansion determined, the proportions
Of it's constituents calculated to the
third decimal place. Then. IN the
year 1896 came Sir William Ramsay
and his colleague Lord Rayleigh and
announced the discovery OF new gas
in the atmospheric gas present IN
! the proportion of one part In every
hundred in all the air in which we live
and move and have our being. The
new gas they named argon, the inert,
/ because it refused to combine with any
other element, unlike oxygen and nj
trogen, the two most abundant gases
of the air. which are chemically active
There was considerable incredulity on
the part Of scientific men at the au'
nouncement of the presence OF tho
new gas in the air, but further expert
ment has established it's presence be-
yoni all doubt Argon is one OF the
, most curious of all the elements in tho
way it refuses to combine with any
other substance.
Not content with the discovery OF
argon. Sir William pursued his 1nves'
legations farther, and ultimately dis
! covered four other hitherto unknown
gaseous elements in the air. These
| four are much less abundant than al.
| gon, however. which is thus the most
| important Of the five. Their discovery
and isolation were attended by i'm
mense difficulty, because like argon,
| they refuse to combine with other sub
stances and can only be removed from
the air by liquifying 1t. and separating
the resulting LIQUID into its elements
The lighter of the four new gases
named helium, neon, krypton and
xenon- refused to liquify even at the
| lowest Temperatures which had up to
that time been obtained. BY using
LIQUID hydrogen as cooling agent. Sill
William and his colleagues succeeded
| in setting a new low temperature mark
and liquifying all the five gases. He
related how when the unbelievable
cold liquid hydrogen was drawn from
| its bulb, the air of the room actually
! froze on it's surface-not the moisture
| in the air. but the air itself-and form
ed white SNOWFALL of solid air. that
melted and dripDed to the floor.
| The importance Of the discovery OF
| these new gases, eside from the inter
est that attaches to knowing the con
stituents Of the air We breathe. can
only adequately be appreciated bv meu
Of science. The newcomers filed aWk
| ward gaps in the table of the elements
which science has prepared in one OF
her ATTEMPTS to reduce the phenomena
of chemistry to one logical law. Il.
,, And the man who did all this. whom
death has now claimed, proceeded or
his even wav. unchanged by a world
| reputation. Tall and rather thin ci
| figure. with the keen. considering eye
Of the scientist and the shrewd humor
Of the Scotchman. he never los his
sense of the true relation Of things as
SO manv scientists are prone to do. He
realized the Importance of his work
and Of his specially. of science itself
but he never let those figures fill his
universe. He saw life truly and saw 1t
whole. g.. ....r III ..f
In all his labors he bad the assis
lance of skilled and erudite colleagues
whose contributions to the results at
tanned he was always the first to &C
knowledge But with the greatest OF
| those achievements his name will al
ways be inseparably associated. and
the honor that his colleagues and pos
terity will pay him he has earned In
full measure. " ;