ERRORS DUE TO FALSE DATA. 37 



of A. Gautier, has been absolutely thrown away, as utterly 

 worthless. 



My Method in the Comptes Rendus. 



The necessity of fixed and true values of the auxiliary 

 atomic weights is so palpable that it should never have been 

 overlooked. 



That the use of different values of such auxiliary atomic 

 weights in different hands must give different results for the 

 same atomic weight, even if the chemical determinations 

 were exactly the same, should never have been lost sight of. 



Mv general method of keeping an exact account of the 

 effect of any slight change in the atomic weights, was pub- 

 lished in the Comptes Rendus for 1893 (T. 116, p. 695-698; 

 March, 1893). 



It is deplorable that the famous directors of the great 

 laboratories supported by the French Nation are unable to 

 profit by the contents of the Comptes Rendus of the Acad- 

 emy of Sciences of Paris. 



It seems strange that these most eminent Chemists of 

 Paris do not prevent the falsification of excellent chemical 

 determinations of their French students by the use of incor- 

 rect German atomic weights. 



But if these most eminent Chemists of Paris persist in 

 disregarding the most obvious and elementary principles of 

 mathematics, the work of their students will necessarily be 

 in error, and worthless to Science. 



We shall see whether modern chemistry will accept the 

 conferring of a prize by the Academy of Sciences of Paris, 

 at the recommendation of its section of chemistry, sufficient 

 to adopt these palpably false values of the atomic weight of 

 boron as true. 



I may be pardoned the expression of the hope, that the 

 great laboratories of Paris will in a near future pay some 

 attention to these methods of reduction. 



It is but a few years since Schutzenberger and Friedel 

 have been lost to French Chemistry. It is particularly 

 regretted that A. Gautier has so soon forgotten his col- 



