Like, did someone just come across helium one day, not knowing what it was, and decided to start collecting it in containers? What about neon, hydrogen, and all the others? How did they know where to look, and even when found, how did they collect it without all the gas escaping into the air around them?
In: Earth Science
Look up the fascinating early history of research on gases by [Joseph_Black and Antoine_Lavoisier](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Lavoisier#Joseph_Black’s_%22fixed_air%22). Later on, when it became widely known that air is a mixture of gases, then scientists suspected that there may be others gases, they looked for more, so developed advanced techniques for detecting and collecting them.
Collection was typically into the same type of glass vessels already in use for liquids, just with some closure (above water, for example) to prevent escape.
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