II.
We now pass from the consideration of the outer forms of the chemical elements to a study of their internal structure, the arrangement within the element of more or less complicated groups—proto-elements—capable of separate, independent existence; these, once more, may be dissociated into yet simpler groups—hyper-meta-proto-elements—equally capable of separate, independent existence, and resolvable into single ultimate physical atoms, the irreducible substratum of the physical world (see Theosophist, 1908, pp. 354-356).[[18]]
We shall have to study the general internal structure, and then the breaking up of each element, and the admirable diagrams, patiently worked out by Mr. Jinarâjadâsa, will make the study comparatively easy to carry on.
The diagrams, of course, can only give a very general idea of the facts they represent; they give groupings and show relations, but much effort of the imagination is needed to transform the two-dimensional diagram into the three-dimensional object. The wise student will try to visualize the figure from the diagram. Thus the two triangles of hydrogen are not in one plane; the circles are spheres, and the atoms within them, while preserving to each other their relative positions, are in swift movement in three-dimensional space. Where five atoms are seen, as in bromine and iodine, they are generally arranged with the central atom above the four, and their motion indicates lines which erect four plane triangles—meeting at their apices—on a square base, forming a square-based four-sided pyramid. Each dot represents a single ultimate atom. The enclosing lines indicate the impression of form made on the observer, and the groupings of the atoms; the groups will divide along these lines, when the element is broken up, so that the lines have significance, but they do not exist as stable walls or enclosing films, but rather mark limits, not lines, of vibrations. It should be noted that it is not possible to show five of the prisms in the five intersecting tetrahedra of prisms, and 30 atoms must, therefore, be added in counting.
The diagrams are not drawn to scale, as such drawing would be impossible; the dot representing the atom is enormously too large compared with the enclosures, which are absurdly too small; a scale drawing would mean an almost invisible dot on a sheet of many yards square.
The use of the words "positive" and "negative" needs to be guarded by the following paragraphs from the article on "Chemistry" in the Encyclopædia Britannica. We use the words in their ordinary text-book meaning, and have not, so far, detected any characteristics whereby an element can be declared, at sight, to be either positive or negative:—
"When binary compounds, or compounds of two elements, are decomposed by an electric current, the two elements make their appearance at opposite poles. These elements which are disengaged at the negative pole are termed electro-positive or positive or basylous elements, while those disengaged at the positive pole are termed electro-negative or negative or chlorous elements. But the difference between these two classes of elements is one of degree only, and they gradually merge into each other; moreover the electric relations of elements are not absolute, but vary according to the state of combination in which they exist, so that it is just as impossible to divide the elements into two classes according to this property as it is to separate them into two distinct classes of metals and non-metals."
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).
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 (
, 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
(
, 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,
).
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.
CHLORINE: Upper part {12 funnels of 25 atoms 300
{Central globe 10
Lower part same 310
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 639
----
Atomic weight 35.473
Number weight 639/18 35.50
(The Atomic Weights are mostly from Erdmann, and the Number Weights are those ascertained by us by counting the atoms as described on p. 349, January, and dividing by 18. Prof. T.W. Richards, in Nature, July 18, 1907, gives 35.473.)
Bromine
(
, 3).—In bromine, each funnel has three additional bodies, ovoid in shape, an addition of 33 atoms being thus made without any disturbance of form; two pairs of atoms are added to the central globe, and a rearrangement of the atoms is effected by drawing together and lessening the swing of the pair of triplets, thus making symmetrical room for the newcomers. The connecting rod remains unchanged. The total number of atoms is thus raised from the 639 of chlorine to 1439. Over and over again, in these investigations, were we reminded of Tyndall's fascinating description of crystal building, and his fancy of the tiny, ingenious builders busied therein. Truly are there such builders, and the ingenuity and effectiveness of their devices are delightful to see.
BROMINE: Upper part {12 funnels of 58 atoms 696
{Central globe 14
Lower part same 710
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 1439
----
Atomic weight 79.953
Number weight 1459/18 79.944
Iodine
(
, 4).—We find herein that the central globe gains 4 atoms, the two pairs becoming 2 quartets; the connecting rod exactly reproduces the rods of chlorine and bromine; the funnel is also that of bromine, except that five bodies, containing 35 atoms, are added to it. The 1439 atoms of bromine are thus raised to 2887.
IODINE: Upper Part {12 funnels of 90 atoms 1116
{Central globe 18
Lower part same 1134
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 2287
----
Atomic weight 126.01
Number weight 2287/18 127.055
The plan underlying the building up of groups is here clearly shown; a figure is built up on a certain plan, in this case a dumb-bell; in the succeeding members of the group additional atoms are symmetrically introduced, modifying the appearance, but following the general idea; in this case the connecting rod remains unaltered, while the two ends become larger and larger, more and more overshadowing it, and causing it to become shorter and thicker. Thus a group is gradually formed by additional symmetrical additions. In the undiscovered remaining member of the group we may suppose that the rod will have become still more egg-like, as in the case of gold.
I b.—The corresponding positive group to that which we have been considering consists of Na, Cu, Ag, and Au (sodium, copper, silver and gold), with an empty disk between silver and gold, showing where an element ought to be. These four elements are monads, diamagnetic, and positive, and they show the dumb-bell arrangement, although it is much modified in gold; we may presume that the undiscovered element between silver and gold would form a link between them.
Sodium
(Plate VI, 2) has been already described (p. 349, January), as a type of the group, so we need only refer to its internal arrangement in order to note that it is the simplest of the dumb-bell group. Its twelve funnels show only four enclosed bodies, the same as we see in chlorine, bromine, iodine, copper and silver, and which is very little modified in gold. Its central globe is the simplest of all, as is its connecting rod. We may therefore take it that sodium is the ground-plan of the whole group.
SODIUM: Upper part
{ 12 funnels of 16 each 192
{ Central globe 10
Lower part same 202
Connecting rod 14
----
Total 418
----
Atomic weight 23.88
Number weight 418/19 23.22
Copper
(
, 3) introduces an addition in the funnel, that we shall find elsewhere,
e.g.
, in silver, gold, iron, platinum, zinc, tin, the triangular arrangement near the mouth of the funnel and adds to the ten atoms in this nineteen more in three additional enclosed bodies, thus raising the number of atoms in a funnel from the sixteen of sodium to forty-five. The number in the central globe is doubled, and we meet for the first time the peculiar cigar or prism-shaped six-atomed arrangement, that is one of the most common of atomic groups. It ought to imply some definite quality, with its continual recurrence. The central column is the three, four, five, four, three, arrangement already noted.
COPPER: Upper part {12 funnels of 45 atoms 540
{Central globe 20
Lower part same 560
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 1139
----
Atomic weight 63.12
Number weight 1139/18 63.277
Silver
(
, 4) follows copper in the constitution of five of the bodies enclosed in the funnels. But the triangular group contains twenty-one atoms as against ten, and three ovoids, each containing three bodies with eleven atoms, raise the number of atoms in a funnel to seventy-nine. The central globe is decreased by five, and the prisms have disappeared. The connecting rod is unaltered.
SILVER: Upper part {12 funnels of 79 atoms 948
{Central globe 15
Lower part same 963
Connecting rod 19
----
Total 1945
----
Atomic weight 107.93
Number weight 1945/18 108.055
(This atomic weight is given by Stas, in Nature, August 29, 1907, but it has been argued later that the weight should not be above 107.883.)
Gold
(Plate VII) is so complicated that it demands a whole plate to itself. It is difficult to recognize the familiar dumb-bell in this elongated egg, but when we come to examine it, the characteristic groupings appear. The egg is the enormously swollen connecting rod, and the upper and lower parts with their central globes are the almond-like projections above and below, with the central ovoid. Round each almond is a shadowy funnel (not drawn in the diagram), and within the almond is the collection of bodies shown in
e
, wherein the two lowest bodies are the same as in every other member of the negative and positive groups; the third, ascending, is a very slight modification of the other thirds; the fourth is a union and re-arrangement of the fourth and fifth; the fifth, of four ovoids, adds one to the three ovoids of bromine, iodine and silver; the triangular group is like that in copper and silver, though with 28 atoms instead of 10 or 21, and it may be noted that the cone in iron has also 28. The central body in the ovoid is very complicated, and is shown in
c
, the bodies on each side,
d
, are each made up of two tetrahedra, one with four six-atomed prisms at its angles, and the other with four spheres, a pair with four atoms and a pair with three. We then come to the connecting rod. One of the four similar groups in the centre is enlarged in
a
, and one of the sixteen circling groups is enlarged in
b
. These groups are arranged in two planes inclined to one another.
GOLD: Upper part
{ 12 funnels of 97 atoms 1164
{ Central ovoid {c 101
{2 d, 38 76
Lower part same 1341
Connecting rod { 4 a 84 336
{16 b 33 528
----
Total 3546
----
Atomic weight 195.74
Number weight 3546/18 197
It may be noted that the connecting rod is made up of exactly sixteen atoms of occultum, and that sixteen such atoms contain 864 ultimate atoms, the exact member of atoms in titanium.