ERRORS DUE TO FALSE DATA. 33 



without making sure that these auxiliary atomic weights are 

 themselves correct. 



It is incredible, but true, that chemists will reduce their 

 often excellent laboratory work by means of auxiliary atomic 

 weights furnished by committees of chemical societies or 

 some official chemist without allowing for the possible errors 

 of these auxiliary data. 



Necessarily, the errors of these data of the auxiliary 

 atomic weights adopted, will affect the results calculated 

 from the new chemical determinations. 



Ramsay and Aston. 



The opening words of the otherwise admirable paper of 

 Ramsay and Aston on the atomic weight of boron are : 



" The atomic weights employed in this paper are those 

 "given by Clarke: Ag = 107.92, Na = 23.05, 01 = 35.45, 

 " Br = 79.95, H = i. 008 and O = 16." See Journal Chemical 

 Society, vol. 63, p. 215; London, 1893. 



If now each and every one of these five values in reference 

 to the oxygen standard be affected by errors, these errors 

 will necessarily affect all the calculated values of Ramsay 

 and Aston. 



Let us suppose for a moment, that these excellent chem- 

 ists had completed all their chemical work with absolute 

 precision and therefore free from experimental error, the 

 results published would still be erroneous to the extent of 

 the effect of the errors of these five atomic weights of Clarke 

 " employed " by them. 



We shall, in another section, show conclusively that these 

 chemists thus falsified their own most excellent laboratory 

 work. 



We may already at this point call attention to the fact 

 that these authors find the atomic weight of boron 10.965 by 

 calculating from sodium chloride, while calculating from 

 silver chloride they find it 11.084. See determinations Nos. 

 22 to 26. 



As the atomic weight of chlorine appears in both of these 

 compounds, the very large discrepancy of 0.119 is connected 



