Ore Discovery

1895

Sir William Ramsay was experimenting on the uranium containing mineral ore cleveite in 1895. Much of Ramsay’s experimental work had been on gases and he had already discovered the noble gases neon, argon, krypton and xenon. His experiments with cleveite also involved the study of gases. He treated the ore with acids and collected samples of the gases produced. Ramsay sent these samples to Sir Norman Lockyer and Sir William Crookes who confirmed that one of the gases produced was helium.

Concurrently in 1895 while Ramsay was producing helium from cleveite two Swedish chemists, Nils Langlet and Per Theodor Cleve, were also experimenting finding helium in cleveite.