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Page 13
We follow here the grouping according to external forms, and the student
should compare it with the groups marked in the lemniscate arrangement
shown in Article II (p. 377, properly p. 437, February), reading the group
by the disks that fall below each other; thus the first group is H, Cl, Br,
I (hydrogen, chlorine, bromine, iodine) and a blank for an undiscovered
element. The elements grow denser in descending order; thus hydrogen is an
invisible gas; chlorine a denser gas visible by its colour; bromine is a
liquid; iodine is a solid--all, of course, when temperature and pressure
are normal. By the lowering of temperature and the increase of pressure, an
element which is normally gaseous becomes a liquid, and then a solid.
Solid, liquid, gaseous, are three interchangeable states of matter, and an
element does not alter its constitution by changing its state. So far as a
chemical "atom" is concerned, it matters not whether it be drawn for
investigation from a solid, a liquid, or a gas; but the internal
arrangements of the "atoms" become much more complicated as they become
denser and denser, as is seen by the complex arrangements necessitated by
the presence of the 3546 ultimate atoms contained in the chemical "atom" of
gold, as compared with the simple arrangement of the 18 ultimate atoms of
hydrogen.
According to the lemniscate arrangement, we should commence with hydrogen
as the head of the first negative group, but as it differs wholly from
those placed with it, it is better to take it by itself. Hydrogen is the
lightest of the known elements, and is therefore taken as 1 in ordinary
chemistry, and all atomic weights are multiples of this. We take it as 18,
because it contains eighteen ultimate atoms, the smallest number we have
found in a chemical element. So our "number-weights" are obtained by
dividing the total number of atoms in an element by 18 (see p. 349,
January).
[Illustration: PLATE V.]
HYDROGEN (Plate V, 1).--Hydrogen not only stands apart from its reputed
group by not having the characteristic dumb-bell shape, well shown in
sodium (Plate I, opposite p. 349, January), but it also stands apart in
being positive, serving as a base, not as a chlorous, or acid, radical,
thus "playing the part of a metal," as in hydrogen chloride (hydrochloric
acid), hydrogen sulphate (sulphuric acid), etc.
It is most curious that hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen, the most widely
spread gases, all differ fundamentally in form from the groups they
reputedly head.[19] Hydrogen was the first chemical element examined by us,
nearly thirteen years ago, and I reproduce here the substance of what I
wrote in November, 1895, for we have nothing to add to nor amend in it.
Hydrogen consists of six small bodies, contained in an egg-like form (the
outer forms are not given in the diagrams). The six little bodies are
arranged in two sets of three, forming two triangles which are not
interchangeable, but are related to each other as object and image. The six
bodies are not all alike; they each contain three ultimate physical atoms,
but in four of the bodies the three atoms are arranged in a triangle, and
in the remaining two in a line.
HYDROGEN: 6 bodies of 3 18
Atomic weight 1
Number weight 18/18 1
I.--THE DUMB-BELL GROUP.
I a.--This group consists of Cl, Br, and I (chlorine, bromine and iodine);
they are monads, diamagnetic and negative.
CHLORINE (Plate V, 2).--As already said, the general form is that of the
dumb-bell, the lower and upper parts each consisting of twelve funnels, six
sloping upwards and six downwards, the funnels radiating outwards from a
central globe, and these two parts being united by a connecting rod (see,
again, sodium, Plate I).
The funnel (shown flat as an isosceles triangle, standing on its apex) is a
somewhat complicated structure, of the same type as that in sodium (Plate
VI, 2), the difference consisting in the addition of one more globe,
containing nine additional atoms. The central globe is the same as in
sodium, but the connecting rod differs. We have here a regular arrangement
of five globes, containing three, four, five, four, three atoms
respectively, whereas sodium has only three bodies, containing four, six,
four. But copper and silver, its congeners, have their connecting rods of
exactly the same pattern as the chlorine rod, and the chlorine rod
reappears in both bromine and iodine. These close similarities point to
some real relation between these groups of elements, which are placed, in
the lemniscates, equi-distant from the central line, though one is on the
swing which is going towards that line and the other is on the swing away
from it.
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