EIvISHA MITCHELI. SCIENTlf^IC SOCIETY. 42 



tie is to be gleaned from such work. Stratig-e and puzzling- 

 fig-ures occasionally appear but the fanciful erratic na- 

 ture of most of it can be seen from the connection reduced 

 by some between these numerical regularities and the plan- 

 etary distances or other matters, equally as far away. 

 Some have sought out mathematical formulas by which the 

 atomic weights might be calculated but without very 

 gratifying success. One of the most persistent dreams 

 of the century, Front's Hypothesis, seems to have received 

 its quietus for a time at least. Such error is hydra-head- 

 ed and one can never be sure that all the heads are olf . 



A grand service has been done Chemistry by the dis- 

 covery and announcement of this system. Chemists have 

 the short-coming-s of their science brought clearly to 

 their notice and research which was before somewhat 

 desultory and aimless, a little picking here and there, is 

 concentrated and direct so that the work may tell. And 

 this is well as we enter upon a new century — one whose 

 close is to see us a good hundred years further on than 

 we are now. The gaps must be filled, error eliminated, 

 knowledge perfected, so that we need grope no longer but 

 may walk in the light of truth. The man who takes 

 some little portion of the field and examines the inconsist- 

 ent statements, and stumbles over the absolute errors, 

 and loses his way along paths upon which research has 

 shed no light at all, must bow his head in shame at the 

 small result of our toil during all these centuries of grop- 

 ing. 



Let us then be up and doing. Strive to make some 

 one thing clearer, to brush away some error, or to place 

 one stepping stone securely for the feet that are to fol- 

 low."' 



^Address before N. C. Section Amer. Chem. Soc, F. P. Venable, Ra- 

 leigh Feb. 22, 1897. . 



