NO. II 



STRUCTURE OF THE ATOM PARSON 



79 



be additive ; but the value for Argon would be expected to be more 

 than three times that for Helium, because groups of eight mutually 

 strengthen one another (§n). Thus we may with some confidence 

 take the susceptibility of the isolated group of eight to be about 

 -38.8. 

 Now, while the groups of eight in the Argon atom are strength- 



ened, those in "salt" molecules like K-faJ, H.j^Oj, H -^Cl 



etc. (which contain nothing but groups of eight), are weakened by 

 the electrostatic strain set up by the transfer of magnetons from one 

 atom to another : the groups of eight in such molecules retain their 

 structure in spite of electrostatic forces. 1 We expect, then, what the 

 following table shows to be the case — a decreased diamagnetism. 



The numbers here are calculated from the data in the comprehensive 

 work of Stephen Meyer on diamagnetism (loc. cit.). The upper 



1 Not merely one group of eight in the chloride ion, -Cq\ ) (3^) ( wm ch 



is got from the chlorine atom, CI (27 + 7))) suffers in this way, for the 

 strain must be evenly distributed among all three. 



