ABSTRACT
While Crookes made no great discovery during the 1890s, he found his expertise as a spectoscopist much in demand when evidence for the existence of an unknown group of gases began to emerge. Although he had hitherto always avoided collaborative research, he was now only too pleased to offer advice and expertise. Unlike Stokes, whose help to Crookes and other contemporary scientists remained largely hidden, Crookes happily basked in reflected glory and took the opportunity to publish his conformation of others’ work, as well as his own interpretations of it, in the scientific press. On the other hand, while relishing the publicity, he was cautious about accepting American evidence for the transmutation of elements into gold in 1898. Both the inert gases and transmutation were controversial subjects and Crookes exploited this for all his worth as editor of Chemical News.
