PLATINUM. SEUBERf. 1 15 



It was but natural for my thoughts to flit from the Boston 

 Museum of Fine Arts across the " Cam. Bridge " to the 

 Chemical Laboratory of Harvard University where I visited 

 Professor Cooke some thirty-five years ago. 



How happy the authorities of Old Harvard will have 

 reason to be if twenty per cent of the atomic weights 

 recently manufactured in their Chemical Laboratory are not 

 demonstrably false and fraudulent. 



Postscript. While reading the proof I find, in Science 

 for July 5, 1901 (p. 36), the following quoted from an article 

 written by Professor Richards for the Harvard Graduate 

 Magazine on Research Work in Harvard Chemical Labora- 

 tory. The italics are ours. 



(( In the last ten years the atomic weights of copper, 

 " barium, strontium, calcium, zinc, magnesium, cobalt, 

 " nickel, uranium and cesium have all been studied with 

 " a care which seems to carry conviction -with it. This work 

 i( has all been handicapped by the inadequate quarters in 

 " which it had to be performed, and we now have to face 

 " the bitter alternative of being obliged either to turn atuay 

 li graduate students, or else so to crowd them together as 

 "to make accurate investigation almost impossible." 



It would most assuredly be best for the good repute of 

 Harvard to have this manufacture of Tanagra Atomic 

 Weights closed. 



Ten such Tanagras in ten years is too much. Our 

 Chemical Rumpelkammer will have to be enlarged. 



It might be an admirable plan to give Professor Richards 

 a rest to season. 



u Graduate Students" at Harvard might be "turned 

 away " into other fields of chemistry to browse, where they 

 would do less harm to themselves and be less likely to dis- 

 grace Old Harvard. 



X. THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF PLATINUM. SEUBERT. 



The most common and general reaction for platinum is 

 the formation of the so-called double chloride with potas- 

 sium or ammonium chloride. This reaction is of daily use 



