194 STASIAX FOLLY AND FRAUD. 



and is somewhat less than 108 when referred to O := 16, 

 namely, Ag = 107.924. 



But as we here have to do with analytical ratios used by 

 Clarke himself for nitrogen only, we have nothing to do 

 with the silver value but to use it as we find it given by 

 Clarke himself. 



And in that case, as we have seen in detail, the atomic 

 weight of nitrogen comes out exactly as fourteen-sixteenths 

 that of oxygen from the very determinations of Stas. 



Now these determinations have for about forty years 

 been taken to contradict this result most decidedly. 



Why has not some one of the Stasian Re-Calculators 

 noticed the fact so palpable in our diagram of the plain, 

 actual data given by Stas himself? 



This is one of the mysteries of Stas and his School, 

 officially recognized throughout the world of chemistry for 

 forty years. 



Stas and his School denounce imagination and pretend 

 to give facts, and exact facts only. 



The fact is they play with facts, reduce them en-bloc, a 

 whole group of them at once so they can not tell one from 

 the other. 



The method of reduction used by Stas is like the olla 

 podrida of the Spanish. 



Throw everything from the dining table into it, as it is 

 "leftover" or obtained in the experiments; then take out 

 as you need it, and don't mind the odor nor the error. 



In the same way, but on a most magnificent, truly 

 American scale, Clarke proceeds in his Smithsonian Con- 

 stants of Nature, and has produced the most nauseating 

 chemical olla podrida that ever was, and we hope, ever 

 will be. 



We have now twice, holding our nose, taken out from 

 this chemical olla podrida a full set of Stasian determina- 

 tions; and when considering them, without regard to 

 anything else, only as experimental determinations made 

 for the chemical determination of the atomic weight of 

 nitrogen, and proceeding in the ordinary way of the art, 

 using the auxiliary values, as furnished by the Stasian Grand 



