YTTRIA. 327 



SECT. III. 



OF THE ATOMIC WEIGHT OF YTTRIA. 



THOUGH yttria has been known for almost 

 twenty years, the minerals in which it occurs 

 have been hitherto met with only in Sweden ; 

 and even in that country, they are so scarce as 

 hardly to be procured, except in pieces too small 

 to admit of the extraction of a quantity of yttria 

 sufficiently large to enable us to make experi- 

 ments on the composition of the salts which it 

 forms. Thus circumstanced, I have been ne- 

 cessarily confined to experiments made upon a 

 very few grains of this earth ; and though they 

 were conducted with the most scrupulous atten- 

 tion to accuracy, I was not able to draw any 

 satisfactory conclusions from them. I am, 

 therefore, under the necessity of deducing the 

 atomic weight of this earth from the experiments 

 of Berzelius. Fortunately, this illustrious che- 

 mist is so remarkably accurate in his experiments, 

 that they are sure to furnish an exceedingly good 

 approximation. 



1. Berzelius put 100 parts of dry carbonate of Analysis of 



carbonate 



yttria into a small retort, a glass tube connected of yttria. 

 with the beak of which, was filled with dry mu- 



