74 JOURNAIv OF THE 



multiples of hydroo-en. Clarke claims forty-one out 

 of sixty-six but includes such as niobium, did3miium, 

 gallium, tung'sten, thorium, &c. A little critical 

 examination of his list will easily cut the whole num- 

 ber down to little more than half of the forty claimed. 

 The best that can be said is that about two in three 

 are whole numbers and the remainder run the full 

 rang-e of decimals from .1 to .9 and no halving of the 

 atomic weight can possibly hit upon them. When it 

 is considered that about as many of the elements are 

 whole numbers when h3'drogen is taken as 1.0025 as 

 when it is equal to unity, it will be seen how little 

 bearing- upon hydrogfen as the primal element the 

 facts of integ-ral atomic weights would have. 



THE IMPROBABILITY OE HYDROGEN BEING THE PRI- 

 MAL ELEMENT. 



I hesitate to discuss this question because I scarcely 

 think it is seriously urged but a few thoughts may not 

 be amiss. The supposition of a primal element having" 

 as its atomic weight half or any other fraction of the 

 weig*ht of hydrog'en is based simply upon the increased 

 number of coincidences of the atomic weig-hts with 

 whole multiples and can have little weight. Such an 

 hypothetical pantogen escapes all serious arg-u- 

 ment. But ag'ainst the supposition that hydrogen is 

 the primal element many things may be urged. 



In its favor there is little beyond the fact that some 

 two-thirds of the different atoms, so far accurately de- 

 termined, have approximately integral weig'hts and 

 that, in the table of elements, hydrog^en occupies a 

 most anomalous position and refuses to be satisfacto- 

 rily arrang-ed in any of the g'roups or periods. If, 



