I5O ABSOLUTE ATOMIC WEIGHT. 



The discordance of these results is even too much for 

 Clarke, who says (p. 175), that " the discordance" in the 

 ratio Na Cl : Ag Cl ll -was noted, (p. 52) -which again appears 

 here" and " entitles it to comparatively little credence" 



Now, a bad egg will not hatch, and a bad analytical pro- 

 cess cannot give good analytical ratios. We should not use 

 processes known to be bad in determining atomic weights 

 any more than we would set a hen on eggs known to be bad. 



Is it really exacting to demand of a recalculator in the 

 government service to use as much intelligence and common 

 sense in the revision of the atomic weights, the fundamental 

 data of chemistry, as a farmer cheerfully expends when set- 

 ting a hen? 



Professor Clarke evidently thinks such a demand is 

 unreasonably exacting; for he puts the five bad eggs of 

 Series I and the five good eggs of Series II under his hen 

 and gets what he always succeeds in getting: rotten results 

 for his fragrant olla podrida. 



This " discordance" appears (on page 215 in the publica- 

 tion of Ramsay cited) most strikingly under the heading of 



Boron Atomic Weight, Calculated from: 



No. Na Cl. 



22 10.983 



23 -955 



24 .936 



25 .968 



26 .992 

 Mean 10.965 



It is seen that the two sets of atomic weights calculated 

 by the chemists themselves (by the use of Clarke's false 

 Smithsonian Atomic Weights, see pp. 33-34, supra) are 

 irreconciliable; those calculated from the silver chloride 

 determinations being, on the average, 8 hundredths higher 

 than those calculated by means of sodium chloride. 



Now "8 hundredths" is very nearly u one per cent" on 

 Bo = n. 



A discordance of i on 100 is rather tough " Exact 

 Science." 



