The Valence of Oxygen, Etc. 



333 



TABLE 2 



sufficiently accurate to enable this conclusion to be drawn 

 without reservation. The critical data of some of these sub- 

 stances have not been determined with entire accuracy and 

 it is possible, in some, that a very small amount of association 

 may occur at the critical temperature and such association 

 would have the effect of making uncertain the valence de- 

 termination. With these reservations, however, this method 

 undoubtedly supports the view that oxygen may be tetra- 

 valent, and particularly that one atom is tetravalent in the 

 esters. 



The method shows oxygen to be bivalent in ether, sulfur 

 dioxide, carbon dioxide and one of the oxygen atoms of the 

 esters. 



In oxygen gas, carbon monoxide and nitric oxide, NO, 

 the oxygen is monovalent, if computed from the cohesion. 

 The maximum number of valences in a molecule of oxygen 

 found by this method was two. It must be confessed that it 

 seems unlikely that oxygen is monovalent in the gaseous 

 form, but the critical data are accurately determined and if 

 this method of determining valence is reliable, as it appears 

 to be, there is no escaping the conclusion. The critical data 

 of carbon monoxide should be redetermined, but from those 



