JOURNAL 
OF THE 
Elisha Mitchell Scientific Society. 
FOURTEENTH YEAR—PART SECOND. 
1897. 
A REVISION OF THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF 
ZIRCONIUM. ' 
BY F. P. VENABLE. 
PREVIOUS DETERMINATIONS OF THE ATOMIC WEIGHT. 
It is perhaps best to give here a brief outline of pre- 
vious determinations of the atomic weight of zirconium. 
Six such series have come under my notice. In three of 
these the sulphate was used, and in the others the chlo- 
ride and the double fluoride of zirconium and potassium 
were used, and 1m one the selenate. 
The determinations of Hermann,* by means of the chlo- 
ride, can be dismissed as untrustworthy, because of his 
failure to overcome the difficulties inherent in the use of 
the chloride as shown by Bailey’s work and my own. 
The work of Marignac upon the double fluoride I am 
net in a position to criticise properly, except in so far as 
to say that his analyses are not very numerous, and that 
they show a range of nearly three units in the atomic 
weight. 
In 1825 Berzelius ignited the sulphate and gave six de- 
terminations of the ratio of the sulphate to the oxide. In> 
1 Read at the Washington Meeting American Chem, Society. 
af Prakt. CHEM... 31, 77 
