THE ATOMIC WEICxHTS AND THEIR 

 NATURAL ARRANGEMENT. 



F. p. VENABLE. 



It is proposed in the following paper to emphasize 

 the necessity for the acceptance of oxyg-en as the stand- 

 ard for the atomic weig'hts, to point out the fact that 

 their absolute determination is not within the bounds of 

 reasonable hope; to show the folly of speculations as 

 to the primal elements in the present state of our knowl- 

 edge; and to sug-gest certain changes in the Periodic 

 Arrangement of the elements as given by Mendelejeff. 



THE OXYGEN STANDARD. 



In 1888 the writer of this paper published in the 

 Journal of the Elisha Mitchell Scientific So- 

 ciety, (Vol. V. 98.) a plea for the adoption of Oxygen 

 as the standard for atomic weights — a return to the 

 very wise and scientific usage of Berzelius. A reprint 

 of this paper was sent to the London Chemical Nerjcs 

 and must have been in the hands of the editor of that 

 journal when there appeared in its pages a paper by 

 Dr. Bohuslav Brauner, of Prag, upon the same subject. 

 The reprint mentioned was published in the Chemical 

 Nevjs a week or so later. The same standpoint was 

 taken in the two papers and largely the same argu- 

 ments used. Indeed it seemed almost incredible that 

 the two could have been written entirely independently 

 of one another. These facts were adverted to by Dr. 

 Brauner in a subsequent paper in the Berliner Beri- 



