PROLOGUE. 



Have we not now in this country, quite a strong State 

 Science supported by millions of dollars of public funds 

 annually, and rapidly branching into all spheres of activity? 



We universally blame the Inquisition to-day for having 

 condemned Galileo in a darker age, and for having insisted 

 upon the stability of the earth and the reality of the motion 

 of the sun and stars around our earth. Yet this Inquisition 

 acted in the performance of its duty, and shielded millions 

 against a spiritual danger which they believed to be very 

 real and very great. v 



Besides, the Inquisition had the testimony of the actual j ' v " 

 phenomena in their favor, for the visible motions of the I /^ * 

 heavens exactly conform to their verdict. / 



But the scientific Secretary of the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion at Washington, in 1897, delares de facto, by indorsing 

 and publishing the work of Clarke, that chemical action 

 changes the weight of matter, which is not only contrary 

 to all experimental evidence, but also contrary to a univers- 

 ally accepted axiom of philosophy and science. 



The Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution declaring 

 officially to be true that which was demonstrated false, and 

 using the funds of that Institution and its franking privi- 

 lege to distribute these gross errors and falsehoods among 

 men per orbem was not (as were the members of the 

 Inquisition) acting in the performance of his duty, which 

 demands that the Smithson Fund, in trust given our 

 National Congress, shall be used for 



" the Increase and Diffusion of KNOWLEDGE among 

 ({ men per orbem." 



The absolute atomic weights presented in this our work, 

 are true to nature, for they are based upon the analyses and 

 determinations of the most reliable chemists and physicists 

 of the Nineteenth Century, from Berzelius to Lord Ray- 

 leigh. 



I most respectfully submit the evidence collected in this 

 book to the General Scientific Public and to the Students 

 of Chemistry throughout the World. 



GUSTAVUS DETLEF HINRICHS, 



4106 Shenandoah Avenue, 

 September, 1901. ST. Louis, Mo., U. S. A. 



