THE TRUE ATOMIC WEIGHTS OF OXYGEN AND 



SILVER. 



By dr. GUSTAVUS HINRICHS. 

 (Read December 2, 19 lo.) 



Chemists have been trying to determine the atomic weights of 

 the chemical elements for now fully a century. Dalton introduced 

 the idea in 1804, while Berzelius made the first reliable determina- 

 tions as far back as 1814 and for a third of a century kept ahead of 

 all others in this work. 



While the laboratory work required for atomic weight determi- 

 nations has been greatly improved since the time of Berzelius, the 

 methods of reduction of the same by mathematical calculation have 

 remained almost the same as those used by Berzelius a century ago. 

 The work I have done in this line has hardly become known in this 

 country, where the work done in one of the scientific departments 

 at Washington, published by the Smithsonian Institution and dis- 

 seminated under the official frank, continues to be upheld as the 

 standard through the Committee on Atomic Weights of the Amer- 

 ican Chemical Society. But at the opening of the volume for the 

 present year it is declared that "there is confusion and uncertainty 

 throughout the table of atomic weights."^ 



It therefore seems desirable that this question be considered 

 independent of the dominant chemical school by those who, like 

 electricians and physicists, come in contact with the broad question 

 of the constitution of matter which involves that of the atomic 

 weights of the chemical elements. 



In the old Berzelian calculations the atomic weight of oxygen 

 is assumed as a fixed constant (100 by Berzelius, 16 at present) and 

 all other atomic weights are referred to this standard. This system 

 has led to the now "official" value 107.88 for silver, a value which 

 I have repeatedly shown to be in conflict with the most renowned 



^Journal Am. Chein. Soc., 1910, p. 4. 



