76 JOURNAL OF THE 



each revision, or redetermination, is calculated by two standards, 

 and the individual chemist is left to choose between them at his 

 own sweet will. There is no necessity for this, and it is a blot 

 upon our science. Other scnences, notably electricity, are getting 

 their standards in order, their loins girt, as it were, for the race 

 of the twentieth century. We must settle this question, as well 

 as others, if we would move freelv in the o^rand onward march. 



The best settlement comes, as is often the case, in the way of 

 a kind of compromise. Let oxygen be the standard and hydro- 

 gen practically the unit. This reduces the changes to the least 

 possible, and tables arranged on this basis have been in use a 

 long time. In fact, it was only with the idea of securing greater 

 accuracy that this arrangement was ever changed. The use of 

 O = 15.96 as a factor for calculation appeared about the time of 

 the first appearance of Meyer's work on the Modern Theories of 

 Chemistry, and is mainly due to his instrumentality. The pur- 

 suit of accuracy in that direction has proved an \(jnis fatuus, 

 and the necessity for something more fixed becomes every day 

 more and more apparent. 



The extent of this need impressed me greatly while studying 

 the various recalculations of the atomic; weights as made by 

 Clarke, Meyer and Seubert, Sebelien and Ostwald, and led 

 to an article on the subject first published by the Elisha 

 Mitchell Scientific Society, and afterwards by the Chemical 

 News and the Journal of Analytical ChemidryS^ This seems 

 to have been the first article published in the discussion, 

 but to Dr. Brauner, of Prague, belongs the credit of arous- 

 ing the discussion which was carried on in the Berichte of the 

 German Chemical Society during 1889, and which was partici- 

 pated in by Ostwald, Meyer and Seubert, and Brauner.f Meyer 

 and Seubert alone opposed the adoption of 0=16 as the 

 standard. 



*See Vol. Ill, p. 48. 



jSee also Chem. Zeit. 1800, No. 13, wliero Dittmar say.s: " Ich wage zu lioffen dass die- 

 jenigen ('hemiker, welchc seither, naelidoin sie die Ueherzeugung gewonnon liatten 

 dass 0:H kleiner ist als Ki, darauf bestanden liuben, dass H = l als einlieit fur die 

 Atomgewielite festgehalten vverdeii mnsse, de-^^e absurde Praxis aul'geben and die 16 

 Theil des Atomgewichtes des Sauerstoffs als einheit adoptiren werden." 



