Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/834

814 In the year 1817 Berzelius and Gottlieb Gahn made an examination of the method of preparing sulphuric acid in use at Gripsholm. During the course of this examination, they observed in the acid a sediment of a partly reddish, partly clear brown color, which, under the action of the blowpipe, gave out a peculiar odor, like that attributed by Klaproth to tellurium. As tellurium was a substance of extreme rarity, Berzelius attempted its production from this deposit; but he was unable, after many experiments, to obtain further indications of its presence. He found plentiful signs of sulphur mixed with mercury, copper, zinc, iron, arsenic, and lead, but no trace of tellurium. It was not in the nature of Berzelius to be disheartened by this result. In science every failure advances the boundary of knowledge as well as every success, and Berzelius felt that, if the characteristic odor that had been observed did not proceed from tellurium, it might possibly indicate the presence of some substance then unknown to the chemist. Urged on by this hope he returned with renewed ardor to his work. He collected a great quantity of the material, and submitted the whole mass to various chemical processes. He succeeded in separating successively the sulphur, the mercury, the copper, the tin, and the other known substances whose presence had been indicated by his tests—and, after all these had been eliminated, there still remained a residue which proved upon examination to be what he had been in search of—a new elementary substance. The chemical properties of this new element were found to resemble those of tellurium in so remarkable a degree that Berzelius gave to the substance the name of "selenium," from the Greek word selene, the moon ("tellurium," as is well known, being derived from tellus, the earth).

Although tellurium and selenium are alike in many respects, they differ in their electrical properties, tellurium being a good conductor of electricity, and selenium, as Berzelius showed, a non-conductor. Knox discovered in 1837 that selenium became a conductor when fused; and Hittorff in 1852 showed that it conducted at ordinary temperatures, when in one of its allotropic forms. When selenium is rapidly cooled from a fused condition, it is a non-conductor. In this its vitreous form it is of a dark-brown color, almost black by reflected light, having an exceedingly brilliant surface. In thin films it is transparent, and appears of a beautiful ruby red by transmitted light. When selenium is cooled from a fused condition with extreme slowness, it presents an entirely different appearance, being of a dull lead color, and having throughout a granulated or crystalline structure, and looking like a metal. In this form it is perfectly opaque to light even, in very thin films. This variety of selenium has long been known as "granular" or "crystalline" selenium, or, as Regnault called it, "metallic" selenium. It was selenium of this kind that Hittorff found to be a conductor of electricity at ordinary temperatures. He also found that its resistance to the passage of an electrical current diminished