HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 17 



der the atomic weights more complicated and 

 unmanageable, than the greater size of the whole 

 numbers deduced from hydrogen as a unity. 

 But this view of the subject is quite erroneous. 

 It will be shown in this work, that even when 

 oxygen is made unity, nearly one half of all the 

 atomic weights of bodies are whole numbers. 

 And when fractions exist, they are always either 

 0*25, 0*5, or 0-75 ; except in four or five cases, 

 when the fraction is 0-125, 0-375, or 0-625. 

 If hydrogen be unity the atom of manganese is 

 28, while it is 3i if oxygen be unity. The atom 

 of barytes on the former supposition is 78, on 

 the latter 9f. Now surely it will not be said 

 that the fractional numbers are more unwieldy, 

 or more unmanageable than the whole numbers ; 

 while in all cases of whole numbers the advan- 

 tage on the side of the latter method is very 

 great. Thus, if hydrogen be unity, the atom of 

 uranium is 208, while if oxygen be unity it is 

 only 26. 



It was Dr. Wollaston that first suggested the 

 representing of oxygen by unity. Berzelius, in 

 his important investigations, adopted this me- 

 thod ; and I did the same thing in the papers 

 which I wrote on the Atomic Theory in the first 

 series of the Annals of Philosophy. In the 

 second series of the Annals, Mr. R. Philips has 

 given a table of atoms according to the hydrogen 

 scale. 



VOL. I. B 



