174 



PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



TABLE IV. — Continued. 

 Newlands, 1865. 



endeavor to show that all the numerical relations among the equivalents 

 pointed out by M. Dumas and others, including the well known triads, 

 are merely arithmetical results flowing from the existence of the 'law of 

 octaves,' taken in connection with the fact of the equivalents forming 

 a series of numbers approaching to the natural order." And in 1866 : 

 " The fact that such a simple relation exists now, affords a strong 

 presumptive proof that it will always continue to exist, even should 

 hundreds of new elements be discovered. For, although the differ- 

 ence in the numbers of analogous elements might, in that case, be 

 altered from 7, or a multiple of 7, to 8, 9, 10, 20, or any conceiv- 

 able figure, the existence of a simple relation among the number of 

 analogous elements would be none the less evident." * The law of 

 regular increase, however, points to a relationship far more significant 

 than the identity of their ordinal numbers. 



Working independently of Newlands, Mendeleeff discovered the pe- 

 riodic law in 1869. It has offered a grand incentive to new discov- 

 eries and received well merited recognition throughout the world. 

 The extracts from Wurtz and Meyer, at the beginning of this paper, 

 show what it left to be desired. 



A paper by Rev. Dr. Haughton, and an abstract of one by Mr. 

 Stoney, have recently appeared in " The Chemical News." Each 

 gives a clear enunciation of the nature of the problem. Dr. Haugh- 

 ton discovers some of the regular intervals noticed here. Unfortu- 

 nately, the paper of Stoney, on " The Logarithmic Law of Atomic 

 Weights " f is so abridged, that it is hard to determine how his results 

 may compare with those herein discussed. The abstract states, that, 

 in plotting the atomic volumes as ordinates of a diagram, the effort to 



* The Periodic Law, p. 20. 



t The Chemical News, vol. lvii. p. 163. 



