2OO STASIAN FOLLY AND FRAUD. 



scale in any cosmical system, the force of gravitation 

 increasing one-tenth of one per cent, the orbits must con- 

 tract. 



But let us not be drawn aside from our immediate duty 

 by the fascinating new prospects which our Government 

 establishments of science open to our eyes in cosmos, 

 present and past.* 



We have here to deal with atomic weights only; let us 

 return to this subject, and determine the effect of this new 

 axiom on the value of the atomic weight of nitrogen, deter- 

 mined by the chemical means here under consideration. 



All our calculations made and of which the resulting 

 values of the atomic weight of nitrogen were printed above 

 on p. 192, and represented to scale in diagram, Plate III, 

 were, we are sorry to say, calculated upon the common 

 supposition that as to weight 



Ka Cl = Ka -f- Cl. 



Or, to be quite exact, in numbers, taking as we did, the 

 atomic weights of Clarke, p. 70, 



Ka=z 38.817 

 Cl =35-179 



we, in our ignorance of mind and blindness of heart put the 

 atomic weight of the compound equal to the arithmetical 

 sum, as Berzelius would have done, 



KaCl = 73-996 

 and did not add the value of weight 



0.029 



" produced by chemical combination" which alone can 

 produce the Clarkian value specifically and separately 

 given, p. 70, as 



Ka Cl = 74.025. 



For all determinations of the atomic weight of nitrogen, 

 by means of the analytical ratio of silver nitrate to potas- 

 sium chloride, in the manner fully set forth in a preceding 



* While reading this proof, a Sunday paper brings the illustrated 

 prediction of the greater stature of future man by Professor McGee, the 

 official anthropologist. It is really too bad that our sensational papers 

 get some of their most harmful errors about scientific matters from our 

 "official scientists" at Washington. 



