Sunium

“ Beneath the height of Sunium, where the Temple of Poseidon still lifts blanched columns above the passing mariners who have no care for the sea-god's glory, lies the islet of Gaidaronisi, and the mountains of Megara and of Argolis lie like dreaming shadows in the sunlight. Very pure, very perfect, is this great view. Nature here seems purged of all excesses, and even nature in certain places can look almost theatrical, though never in Greece. The sea shines with gold, is decked with marvelous purple, glimmers afar with silver, fades into the color of shadow. ”

“ If it is clear, a few islands may be seen on the right, though none of the celebrated ones are near enough to be seen with any satisfaction. Sunium itself is so far away to the eastward that it is impossible at this distance to obtain any idea of the ancient ruin that still crowns its summit. ”

“ Rocks, mountains and storms, go much together in imagination, but here such an association is completely broken, and the barren mountain, and the naked rock, seem only objects for the sun to shine on. All nature looks cheerful and happy, and our melancholy recollections are almost driven away by the brilliancy of the prospect.
At Sunium eleven columns remain in their places, and the marble is kept rather of a raw, and overbearing whiteness by the action of the sea air. ”

“ Farther away, the Laurium, with its rich argentiferous slags, stretches towards the south-east, and terminates in Cape Sunium, consecrated in other days to Minerva and Neptune, and still surmounted by fifteen columns of an ancient temple. ”

“ The whole country here seems to belong to a formation of mica slate abounding in marble, (should not this composition have a name of its own?) and the superincumbent beds are very partial and trifling, both in thickness and extent. At Sunium, on the contrary, and along the whole western coast, the rock belongs to later formations.
We staid at Porto Mandril all the 23rd, and on the 24th beat up against the wind to Marathon. On the 25th we landed, and after a long ramble over the plain, returned to breakfast in a tent prepared for us on the shore. ”

“ The nature of the mineral used for the extraction will, as a rule, afford useful information. It is known that in some minerals the cerium group, in others the yttrium group, predominates more or less completely; certain minerals, also, are known to be rich in elements of one or another subgroup. An approximate knowledge of the relative [148] proportions of the cerium, terbium, and yttrium groups will be afforded by a rough double sulphate separation; thorium, zirconium, and scandium come down with the cerium earths. ”

“ The art of casting in metal was also practised by the Sumerians, and even in the earliest period, anterior to the reign of Ur-Ninâ, small foundation-figures have been discovered, which were cast solid in copper. In fact, copper was the metal most commonly employed by the Sumerians, and their stage of culture throughout the long period of their history may be described as a copper age, rather than an age of bronze. ”

“ Young had drawn up at Hanover a catalogue of 103 bright lines in the spectrum of the chromosphere; at Sherman the number was extended to 273, while, at moments of unusual solar disturbance, there were glimpses of at least as many more. Sulphur, strontium, and cerium, are almost certainly proved to be constituents of the solar atmosphere, and zinc, erbium, and didymium are strongly indicated. ”

“ The natural transition from titanium and vanadium to copper and zinc by means of the elements of the iron group is demonstrated by all the properties of these elements, and in exactly the same manner a transition from zirconium, niobium, and molybdenum to silver, cadmium, and indium, through ruthenium, rhodium, and palladium, is in perfect accordance with fact and with the magnitude of the atomic weights, as also is the position of osmium, iridium, and platinum between tantalum and tungsten on the one side, and gold and mercury on the other. ”

“ It is also thought to be very lasting and is always used in erections which are intended to be durable. Sungi is a kind of cedar and grows in large quantities throughout the whole of Japan. There are many qualities of sungi, the best being almost as good in appearance as shinoki: it is however much cheaper. Sungi is principally used in the dwelling houses of the people which are only desired to be of an ordinary description. A cheaper wood which is used for more temporary erections is matsu, a sort of pine. ”

“ Sometimes the black vitalium wings were spread, to catch the energy of the sun. The sunship draws its name from the fact that it is driven by solar power. It utilizes the remarkable properties of the rare radioactive metal, vitalium, which is believed to be the very basis of life, since it was first discovered to exist in minute traces in those complex substances so necessary to all life, the vitamins. Large deposits were discovered at Kepler and elsewhere on the moon during the twenty-first century. ”

“ For if there were no occult and nitrous virtue in the Rain, it would conduce but little to fertility; and if there were no spiritual and astral Gold, or spiritual and astral Sun in Salt, the immature Metals could not be ripened by the same. By how much the oftner therefore, a good Spirit of Salt is drawn off from the Saturnine Earth, and Saturnine Seed, so much the sooner also doth that Seed arrive unto its full ripeness. ”

“ In saying that they are present in the sun’s atmosphere, I am, in point of fact, saying that they are present in the sun; for the solar atmosphere is, in fact, the outer part of the sun himself, since a very large part, if not by far the greater part, of the sun’s mass must be vaporous. But no other elements, except the metals iron, sodium, barium, calcium, magnesium, aluminium, manganese, chromium, cobalt, nickel, zinc, copper, and titanium, and the element hydrogen, were shown to be present in the sun, by this method of observing directly the solar dark lines. ”

“ As quickly as possible Arcot outlined to the two who had stayed with the Solarite, the things they had seen, and the layout of the great ship.
“I think I can understand the secret of all that power, and it's not so different from the Solarite, at that. It, too, draws its power from the sun, though in a different way, and it stores it within itself, which the Solarite does not try to do.
“Light of course, is energy, and therefore, has mass. It [Pg. 126] exerts pressure, the impact of its moving units of energy—photons. We have electrons and protons of matter, and photons of light. ”

“ Among the metals of the alkalis, the most widely distributed in nature, after sodium, is potassium. Like sodium, it does not appear either in a free state or as oxide or hydroxide, but in the form of salts, which present much in common with the salts of sodium in the manner of their occurrence. The compounds of potassium and sodium in the earth's crust occur as mineral compounds of silica. With silica, SiO2, potassium oxide, like sodium oxide, forms saline mineral substances resembling glass. ”

“ With the alkali sulphates, the sulphates of the rare earth elements readily form double salts, which are of great importance in separation, on account of the great differences in solubility. The double sulphates of the cerium group are almost insoluble in excess of alkali sulphate, whereas the yttrium double sulphates, with the exception of those of the terbium metals, which occupy an intermediate position, are [127] very easily soluble. ”

“ Still another good system is the rare feldspar, sanidine, which is excellent for both potassium-argon and rubidium-strontium age determination. Sanidine usually is found in volcanic ash falls and has been important in the establishment of the geologic time scale, as we shall see.
Whole Rocks
Finally there is still another way of obtaining a closed system by using the whole rock, not just a crystal of a single mineral within it. A large body of granite or similar rock may contain a number of minerals, some or none of which may be closed systems. ”

“ Germanium is a greyish-white, lustrous metal of sp.gr. 5.5., melting at about 900°, and resembling silicon and tin in its general chemical relations.
Dysprosium, europium, gadolinium, lutecium, neodymium, praseodymium, samarium, thulium, and ytterbium (neoytterbium) belong, like scandium, to the group of the so-called rare earth metals. These substances have been detected in a great variety of minerals, many of which are extremely rare. The elements most frequently occur in nature associated with yttrium, cerium, thorium, and zirconium. ”

“ In their native mountains of Epirus, the name of Suliote was now blotted from the books of life, and was heard no more in those wild sylvan haunts, where once it had filled every echo with the breath of panic to the quailing hearts of the Moslems. In the most "palmy" days of Suli, she never had counted more than twenty-five hundred fighting men; and of these no considerable body escaped, excepting the corps who hastily fought their way to Parga. ”

“ Although the Romans were backward in the science of gnomonics and slow to adopt any particular form of horologe, they eventually constructed many a beautiful dial of varied design. The first sundial was erected in Rome in the year 290 B.C., this being taken from the Samnites by Papirius Cursor. ”

“ Its seeds indeed bear some resemblance to those of a Conium; and the flowers, which the able author just cited never saw, are uniform, scarcely radiant. The habit and foliage agree with Conium rather than with Tordylium. But, on the other hand, the character of the involucella dimidiata is not observable, and the crisped margin of the seeds answers better to Tordylium, though their strongly 3-ribbed disk is adverse, and rather belongs to Conium. To the latter genus I should perhaps consent to remove this species. Professor Sprengel, in his Prodr. Plant. ”

“ Rowland's splendid photographs of the solar spectrum have contributed most effectively. About half of these elements, though not in order of certainty, are aluminum, cadmium, calcium, carbon, chromium, cobalt, copper, hydrogen, iron, magnesium, manganese, nickel, scandium, silicon, silver, sodium, titanium, vanadium, yttrium, zinc, and zirconium. Oxygen, too, is pretty surely indicated; but certain elements abundant on earth, as nitrogen and chlorine, together with gold, mercury, phosphorus, and sulphur, are not found in the sun. ”

“ The rare metals cerium, lauthanum, and didymium have been lately investigated by Drs. Hillebrand and Norton, in Bunsen's laboratory. Cerium looks like iron, having both its color and lustre, but is heavier, and has the hardness of calcite. It tarnishes slowly in dry air and rapidly in moist air. It ignites so readily that pieces scratched off inflame, and its wire burns more brilliantly than magnesium wire. Lauthanum is a little harder, but also a little lighter. It tarnishes more easily and inflames less easily than cerium. Didymium resembles lauthanum. ”

“ The whole roster of natural elements is accepted as being built by offshoots of the Solar Phoenix."
"And zonium?" asked Turner.
"The ability of zonium to withstand the blaster beam," said Forrest, "is due to the fact that zonium is really an element from another universe!"
"Another universe?" exploded Ellen Haynes.
"Right," he said. "A universe which operates differently from our own but which produces elements fundamentally constructed of the standard atomic particles of energy, which are basic. Zonium will not combine chemically with any Terran element. ”

“ It occurs in the lexicon of Suidas, a Greek writer of the eleventh century, who defines chemistry, χημíα as the preparation of silver and gold. Attempts at the artificial preparation of the noble metals probably originated with the Arabians, who followed the Egyptians and the Greeks in the cultivation of chemical pursuits. ”

“ The cyanide liked the gold better than the potassium, but it has the bad taste to prefer zinc even to gold. It releases the gold and flies to the embrace of the zinc. The gold, suddenly deserted of the friendship of the cyanide, powders down to the bottom of the tank, in absolutely pure form, ready to be melted down into bars. By other processes, which I won't bother you by describing now, the zinc is released from the cyanide, and the cyanide is led to its old friend the potassium, ready to begin work anew. ”

“ OVER and besides, many Sunnes are seene at once, neither above nor beneath the bodie of the true Sunne indeed, but crosse wise, and overthwart: never neere, nor directly against the earth, neither in the night season, but when the Sunne either riseth or setteth. Once they are reported to have beene seene at noone day in Bosphorus, and continued from morne to even. ”

“ According to this, the metals sodium, calcium, barium, magnesium, iron, chromium, nickel, copper, zinc, strontium, cobalt, manganese, aluminium, and titanium, whose vapors, with those of some few other substances, give the dark lines that cross the solar spectrum, should exist neither as solids nor liquids on the solar surface, but as blazing gases. ”

“ Analysis gives silica 21·8 to 25·3 per cent.; yttria earths 22 to 47 per cent.; ceria earths 5 to 31 per cent. In a variety from Ytterby, the rare earth Scandia was first found, forming up to 0·02 per cent. of the mineral. Small quantities of thoria, ThO2 may be present, and traces of helium were found by Ramsay, Collie, and Travers. According to Strutt it contains also uranium and radium. Like cerite, it does not often occur crystalline, being usually found in amorphous masses. ”