xl A^iimal Report of the Council. 



metals.'' In this i)aper he announced the discovery of stannous 

 ethide and of mercuric methiodide; but the most important 

 announcement contained in this paper is that of the law of 

 atomicity of the elements. These are his words : "It is sufficiently 

 evident, from the examples just given, that such a tendency or 

 law prevails, and that, no matter what the character of the uniting 

 atoms may be, the combining power of the attracting element, if 

 I may be allowed the term, is always satisfied by the same 

 number of these atoms." 



A second memoir on organo-metallic bodies appeared in the 

 P/iil. Trans, for 1855 ' i^i this paper a full account of the prepa- 

 ration and properties of zinc ethide is given. In the following 

 year appeared the important memoir "On a new series of organic 

 acids containing nitrogen;" and in 1857 Frankland published his 

 work on the reactions of ammonia and its analogues on zinc 

 ethide. In the following year he presented to the Royal Society 

 the first paper by J. A. Wanklyn, his pupil and assistant at the 

 Owens College, in which the discovery of sodium methide and 

 potassium ethide was announced. 



In 1857 Frankland resigned the chair of chemistry at the 

 Owens College, and was elected professor at St. Bartholomew's 

 Hospital. In 1S63 he was elected professor in the Royal Insti- 

 tution, and in 1865 was appointed professor of chemistry in the 

 Royal School of Mines, where he held the chair till his final 

 retirement from teaching in 1SS5. 



In 1859 Frankland gave the Bakerian Lecture before the 

 Royal Society, describing the preparation of stannic ethide. In 

 1863 Frankland was joined by B. F. Duppa, who continued to 

 work with nim for several years in the laboratory of the Royal 

 Institution. Their first joint paper describes the preparation of 

 the dangerous compounds mercuric methide and ethide. The 

 Phi/. Trans, for 1862 contains I-'rankland's paper on the organo- 

 boron compounds, a subject he returned to in 1876. 



The synthetical researches on the acids of the lactic and the 

 acrylic series, made in conjunction with Duppa, were carried out 

 between 1862 and 1866. The constitution of these acids was 



