SECRETS OF HELIUM.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 19 April 1926, Page 7

SECRETS OF HELIUM.

A LONG -IMPRISONED GAS. 500,000,000 YEARS OLD. SCIENTISTS’ GREAT DISCOVERY. Sir Ernest Rutherford is delivering, before the Royal institution, a senes of lour lectures on "The Rare (faces of the Atmosphere,” writes the London correspondent oi the Auckland Herald. Ait the first- discourse, on Saturday, the distinguished scientistintroduced a number of experiments. He concluded by liberating helium gas, which lie estimated has lain imprisoned. in a- radio-active mineral lor 01-0,0-10. 000 years, and made to manifest- its existence by the passage through it of au electric discharge, giving plainly and immi.stakably- the brilliant yellow colour which the French astronomer, Janssen, first observed in IbOS during the observation of an eclipse in India. . . . , Sir Ernest said it- was due co those orea-t pioneers. Lord Rialeigh and bir William Ramsay, that a, new ami unsuspected group of gases were discovere<A, and iheir "work \vas 0110 oA the greatest triumphs oi British science. The gases, now known bv the names ol argon. neon-. helium, krypton and xenon, were characterised by one definite chemical property, or absence oi it, inasmuch as they were all oh emit 1 all v inert, and rot used to aombnie with one another or with other do incuts in the atmosphere. Ii was remarkable that some ol those gases, which the pioneei s obtained with difli-c-uliv and in such small quantities, should now have 1.1111111 mu net mis industrial application-. To-day it had been estimated about 1 i.fj.OOO.VXIO litres of argon were produced annually throughout the wmld. and most of this was used for gas-filled electric lights. Neon was also j nod need ip considerable quantities tor discharge tubes used in illuminated advertisements. Helium bail been found in quantity in natural gases both in Canada and in the United States. Sufficient of it had been obtained from these sources to fill an airship. Xotcwoitiiy as were .the ‘many industrial uses to which these rare gases bad been .put,* said Sir Ernest, they represented the corner-stone oi our ideas and conceptions of the structure of atoms, and in a multiplicity of dirpotions tin? julviuipe of science luul been 'influenced by their discovery. Ihe importance of helium to science was •difficult to exaggerate. Ramsay’s detcctiin of its existence in certain radioactive minerals the lecturer described

a-- "one of tile most dramatic discoveries in Mlie history of science.” By it 1 - aid there had been opened up a new region of research where the properties of matter could be examined at such, a low tempera tin 0 that the movements of the atoms and molecules had almost ceased. 'I lie flying atoms of helium, liberated from radium by ii> spontaneous disintegration had proved an invaluable aid in .determining the structure of atoms.

The discovery or argon had as its immediate result in the discovery of helium by Ramsay, the full story of which was one of the most dramatic in the history of science. The French astronomer Janssen first, saw the lines of its spectrum in the chromosphere during an eclipse in India in 1.868. and shortly afterwards Lockycr concluded that tlie-se must be due to an unknown gas present in the p.llll. Shortly after the discovery of argon Sir Henry Miers. who was then working in the British Museum, wrote to Ramsay drawing his attention to tin observation made by Hi!lebrand in Washington to the effect- that elevito gave out a quantity of gas which lie thought might- be nitrogen, or possibly argon. Ramisay did not let the graiss grow under his feet, but bought soilie cleviito the same day. and during the afternoon found ill the gas derived from it the characteristic yellow line of helium, a discovery that was. shortly afterwards confirmed by Crookes.