114 ABSOLUTE ATOMIC WEIGHT. 



Scheerer and Richards. 



But entirely independent of all this, let us for a moment 

 look at the two conflicting results of Scheerer and Richards. 



Let us put it in a table, using the modern deadly parallel 

 column method which we learnt when a boy, dwelling with 

 Robinson Crusoe on his lonely island in the sea. 



Scheerer Richards. 



Atomic Weight, 24.00 2 4-34 



Method, Dry Way. Wet Way. 



Process, Ignition. Titration. 



Substance, Magnesite. Chloride. 



Weighable, Perfectly. Not directly. 



Product, Magnesia. Silver. 



Weighable, Perfectly. Not directly. 



Difference, 1% per cent. 



Finally, for this value 24.34 of Richards, the analytical 

 excess in the dry way work of Scheerer should have been 

 211 high; it is preposterous to suppose that Scheerer could 

 have been so much in error in dry way work. 



Tanagra Atomic Weights. 



It is not worth while saying anything more about this 

 subject except we might mention a somewhat parallel case 

 that has attracted the attention of the public of the United 

 States quite recently. 



At Boston, almost in the shadow of noble old Harvard, 

 they have a Museum of Fine Arts, which contained twentv- 

 eight costly, rare and choice Antique Greek Statuettes, 

 known as the Tanagra Terracottas. 



By the news dispatches in the public press of the country 

 at the close of November, 1900, the people of this land were 

 informed that 23 of these 28 Tanagra Terracottas had just 

 been removed as forgeries pure and simple. 



According to this, about 5 in this quarter hundred were 

 (at least possibly) genuine, at any rate, about twenty per cent 

 had not been proved to be forgeries. 



