Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 7.djvu/465

Rh also a compound body. I need not remind you in this connection that any theory which touches upon the nature of this gas has now an especial interest to us, for as you will be aware this and our most common gases or gaseous vapours are, for good reasons, considered to be distributed throughout the earths and suns generally, and even to pervade the spaces between them and to perform all the functions we have hitherto allotted to a purely hypothetical substance. The nature therefore of any gas which is possibly a constituent of that which we now consider to be a universal atmosphere, becomes invested with an importance to us far beyond what we could even conceive of a short time since.

Lastly, in regard to the question as to the nature of our elements, it appears a very noteworthy circumstance that, by combining cyanogen with sulphur, which is also an analogue of oxygen, we obtain a compound analogous to the halogens I have referred to. That this ternary compound sulphocyanogen should be thus a true salt-radical, is strongly favourable to the idea that one or more of the chlorine group of elements is of a compound nature, and in relation to this it is worthy of record that, as I have already pointed out, the "equivalent number of sulphycyanogen is one which is very nearly the mean between that of chlorine and bromine."

However, whether these facts indicate anything of this kind or not, I think the object of this paper has been fulfilled, for I believe I have shown that, to use a familiar but significant phrase, cyanogen has not the "stuff" in it for making a salt-radical singlehanded, therefore it is not in any way analogous to one, but in order to make it so we must combine it with another element, so that three elements in place of two are as yet the smallest number required to form a compound salt-radical.

In concluding my paper, I cannot avoid expressing a wish that the question which I have raised here had been taken up by some one more accustomed, by training and association, than myself, to grapple it by the aid of what is well termed the "New Chemistry." I have worked at this question by the old lights; but if by this I am successful in inducing any one to take it up who will work at it by the new ones, I shall be satisfied with the result.