THE GASES

OF

THE ATMOSPHERE

THE
HISTORY OF THEIR DISCOVERY

BY
WILLIAM RAMSAY, F.R.S.
PROFESSOR OF CHEMISTRY IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON

WITH PORTRAITS

London

MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd.
NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO.
1896

All rights reserved

“Modern discoveries have not been made by large collections of facts, with subsequent discussion, separation, and resulting deduction of a truth thus rendered perceptible. A few facts have suggested an hypothesis, which means a supposition proper to explain them. The necessary results of this supposition are worked out, and then, and not till then, other facts are examined to see if their ulterior results are found in Nature.”—De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes, ed. 1872, p. 55.