266 THE ATOMIC WEIGHTS. 



TABLE OF ATOMIC WEIGHTS— Continued. 



Silicon 



Silver 



Sodium _. 

 Strontium 

 Sulphur - . 

 Tantalum 

 Tellurium 

 Thallium . 

 Thorium . 



Tin 



Titanium . 

 Tungsten. 

 Uranium _ 

 Vanadium 

 Ytterbium 

 Yttrium .. 



Zinc 



Zirconium 



H .= I. 



28. 



107. 



22. 



87. 



31- 



182. 

 127. 

 203. 



233' 

 117. 



49- 

 183. 

 238. 



5i. 

 172. 



89. 

 64. 



195. 

 675. 

 998, 



374- 

 984, 

 ■144, 

 960, 



7i5> 



414, 



698, 



846, 



610, 



4S2, 



256, 



761, 



816, 



9045. 



367. 



.066 



.0096 



.011 



.032 



.012 



.a 66 



•034 



•0365 



•073 



.040 



.064 



.032 



.0S2 



.024 



.038 



.067 



.019 



•037 



0= 16. 



28.260 



107.923 



23.051 



87-575 



32.058 



182.562 



128.254 



204.183 



233-951 

 117.968 

 49.961 

 184.032 

 239.030 



51-373 



173-158 



90.023 



65-054 

 89-573 



Remarks. 



Very badly determined. 



Imperfectly determined. 

 Crookes' data. 



Imperfectly determined. 



If SO3 = 80, Yb = 173.016. 



Doubtful. 



Axel Erdmann's data. 



Doubtful. 



At the close of his admirable paper on the atomic weight 

 of aluminum Mallet makes substantially the following ar- 

 gument in favor of Front's hypothesis. Citing the atomic 

 weights of eighteen elements which he considers well deter- 

 mined, he shows that ten of them have values falling within 

 one-tenth of a unit of whole numbers. Now, what is the 

 mathematical probability that this close approximation to 

 conformity, with Front's law, in ten cases out of eighteen, is 

 purely accidental, as those chemists who reject the hypoth- 

 esis seem to hold ? Working this problem out. Mallet finds 

 the probability in favor of mere coincidence to be in the 

 ratio of 1 : 1097.8, and hence he concludes that Front's 

 views are still worthy* of respectful consideration. 



Applying Mallet's reasoning to the table of atomic weights 

 now before us, we find that in the first column, when H = 1, 

 twenty-five elements out of sixty-six have values falling 

 within the limits of one-tenth of a unit variation from whole 

 numbers. But many of the figures which fall without this 

 limit involve the variation of oxygen multiplied many times 

 over. We must therefore study the second column, which 

 assumes that the atomic weight of oxygen is exactly six- 



