6, 140.5.
* * * * *
CHAPTER III.
THE LATER RESEARCHES.
The first difficulty that faced us was the identification of the forms seen
on focusing the sight on gases.[2] We could only proceed tentatively. Thus,
a very common form in the air had a sort of dumb-bell shape (see Plate I);
we examined this, comparing our rough sketches, and counted its atoms;
these, divided by 18--the number of ultimate atoms in hydrogen--gave us
23.22 as atomic weight, and this offered the presumption that it was
sodium. We then took various substances--common salt, etc.--in which we
knew sodium was present, and found the dumb-bell form in all. In other
cases, we took small fragments of metals, as iron, tin, zinc, silver, gold;
in others, again, pieces of ore, mineral waters, etc., etc., and, for the
rarest substances, Mr. Leadbeater visited a mineralogical museum. In all,
57 chemical elements were examined, out of the 78 recognized by modern
chemistry.
In addition to these, we found 3 chemical waifs: an unrecognized stranger
between hydrogen and helium which we named occultum, for purposes of
reference, and 2 varieties of one element, which we named kalon and
meta-kalon, between xenon and osmium; we also found 4 varieties of 4
recognized elements and prefixed meta to the name of each, and a second
form of platinum, that we named Pt.
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