172 PROCEEDINGS OP THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



ical Society appointed Professors F. W. Clarke, J. W. Mallet, E. W. 

 Morley, T. W. Richards, and E. F. Smith. Shortly afterward the 

 American Academy of Arts and Sciences added Professors Wolcott 

 Gibbs and Ira Remsen to the list of American delegates. Besides these 

 seven men, the present International Committee contains fifteen from 

 Germany, eleven from Austria, eight from England, five from Belgium, 

 three each from Switzerland and Italy, two from Japan, and one each 

 from Holland, Russia, and Sweden. It is much to be regretted that 

 Denmark, France, and Norway have as yet made no appointments. 



Having thus received very general support, the German committee, in 

 October, 1899, decided upon another step. They forwarded to each 

 member of the International Committee a circular letter containing three 

 questions, which were speedily answered by nearly all of the delegates. 

 A literal translation of these questions follows : — 



"1. Shall O = 16 be fixed as the future standard for the calculation 

 of atomic weights ? 



" 2. Shall the atomic weights be given with so many decimals that the 

 last figure is certain within half a unit, or what other procedure shall be 

 adopted ? 



" 3. Is it desirable that a smaller committee should be formed, which 

 should undertake the continual revision of the yearly atomic weight table 

 and its publication ? In case of agreement upon this point, it is proposed 

 that each association name a single delegate to this smaller committee." 



The forty-nine answers to these questions are highly interesting.* As 

 regards the first question, only seven chemists (one American and six 

 Germans) were decidedly in favor of retaining hydrogen as the standard, 

 while forty were decidedly of the opposite opinion. Two were willing 

 to accept either or both standards of reference. In spite of the fact that 

 men as eminent as Professors Mallet, Volhard, Winkler, and Wislicenus 

 are in the minority, the majority is so overwhelming that we must look 

 upon this point as settled for a long time. Even if the probable delegates 

 from the unrepresented countries should all vote in the negative, the 

 majority must remain in favor of O = 16. Thus the new term, "in- 

 ternational atomic weight," is perfectly clear and unequivocal in its 

 meaning as to the standard of reference, and an important step has been 

 made. 



It may not be irrelevant here to enumerate the advantages and disad- 



* Ber. d. deutsch. chem. Gesell., 33, Heft 12, p. 1850 (1900). The answers are 

 published in full. 



