THALLIUM. CROOKES. 127 



plain Mr. William Crookes published most excellent atomic 

 weight work in 1873, of which, however, the said Mr. 

 William Crookes did not comprehend the meaning, and Sir 

 William Crookes had not yet learned it either in 1896. 



Expurgation of Crookes' Laboratory Record. 



Before we can make final and safe use of our above con- 

 clusion, namely that the experimental laboratory work of 

 Mr. William Crookes destroys the entire system of Stas' 

 doctrine and all his atomic weights, we must expurgate the 

 record of Mr. Crookes in the Philosophical Transactions 

 from the false and invented figures given in Crookes' last 

 three decimals. 



We shall dratv the line at the thousandth of the grain. 

 That is about half a tenth of a milligramme. 



Modern scientific writers delight in pointing out the 

 supposed depravity of priest and priesthood in early Christian 

 and in pagan times. They give picture and word of scien- 

 tific tricks played upon the faithful in olden days, at Rome, 

 at Athens and at Memphis. 



Will not our modern exact scientists, such as for example 

 Sir William Crookes, soon be held guilty of more despica- 

 ble depravity by this infinitely more criminal scientific 

 trickery of their pretended exact determinations being even 

 less substantial than the incense of the priests of old ? 



Is it not a greater fraud to present to the Royal Society 

 a host of numbers, claiming to represent actual data of 

 determinations, made by using our highest instrument of 

 precision in one of its most perfect forms, when the 

 7iumerals so presented and thereupon published to the world 

 in the big Transactions of that Royal Society, are palpable 

 frauds and inventions to fully one third of the entire set of 

 numbers ? 



The old priesthood did preach a mystery, and legitimately 

 used many phenomena, precisely as the parable was used 

 about nineteen centuries ago, and precisely as we use certain 

 illustrations; but modern science first of all is supposed to 

 present the facts of nature by experiment and observation, 

 and when the pretended record of such experiment or obser- 



