THE CHALLENGE OF STAS. 171 



by chemical means with a wonderful degree of precision 

 and certainty by Jean-Servais Stas. See my True Atomic 

 Weights, 1894; p. 33. 



It is 14.041 in 1860; 14.044 in 1865; 14.055 in 1882 accord- 

 ing to Stas and his Dutch Re-Calculator, Van der Plaats 

 (True Atomic Weights, p. 34). 



It is 14.041 according to his Great Official American Re- 

 Calculator Clarke (edition 1897, p. 71); the probable error 

 being 0.002 1 only. 



As no one to-day can know chemistry without being able 

 to read German (until 1870 the language of chemistry was 

 French, for till then chemistry was declared to be a French 

 science*), I shall quote the greatest German authority on 

 this Atomic Weight in the learned German : 



"Das endgiiltige Atomgewicht des Stickstoffs ist nach 

 den oben berechneten Untersuchungen von Stas gleich 

 N = 14.0410 i 0.0037." 



See Ostwald, Physikalische Chemie. Bd. I, p. sso; 1891. 



How thoroughly Professor Ostwald is competent for 

 atomic weight calculations and how fully he understands 

 the proper use of the method of the least squares in the cal- 

 culation of the probable error of a mean atomic weight, I 

 have tried to show pp. 42-46 of my True Atomic Weights, 

 1894. 



Take these leading authorities differing more than they 

 ought to, if the work of Stas were what it is proclaimed to 

 be we must accept N = 14.04 as the value agreed upon by 

 these authorities. 



Stas himself is on record as to the degree of certainty of 

 this value. He has put his statement in a most formidable 

 mathematical form. He evidently by some mathematical 

 friend, probably A. Quetelet, who knew as little of chem- 



*Now, under the leadership of Moissan, young French Chemists in 

 the great National Chemical Laboratories at Paris are directed to take 

 their fundamental chemical data from the " Three German Chemists " 

 adopted by a vote of the German Chemical Society and the said young 

 French Chemists thereby actually spoil and falsify their excellent labora- 

 tory work. 



This is the "New Era of Chemistry" in Paris. See p. 155, also p. 34. 



