TRANSACTIONS OF THE SECTIONS. 399 



natural results due to the influence of the chemical affinity, 

 modified by the current. The refusal of elements or substances 

 present to collect at the poles unless they are in relation by 

 solution or chemical affinity with the substances present, also 

 finds its natural reason in the theory. 



The fact that an element will sometimes go to one pole and 

 sometimes to the other, according to the substances with which 

 it is in association at the time, is an immediate result- of the 

 theory. Nitrogen is said to do this : it will go freely to the po- 

 sitive pole, and doubtfully to the negative pole. Water will go 

 either to the positive or negative pole, and sulphur will also do 

 so : from oxygen it will go to the negative pole, from silver to 

 the positive pole. 



Want of time and apparatus prevented a further develop- 

 ment of this view and its consequences, but it will appear in de- 

 tail in the next Part of the Philosophical Transactions. 



Experiments on Atomic Weights. By Dr. Turner. 



Dr. Turner reported to the Meeting that he had continued 

 his researches into atomic weights, and had to his own convic- 

 tion determined the points which had induced him to undertake 

 the inquiry. These were, first, to form an opinion of the re- 

 lative accuracy of the tables of equivalents employed in this 

 country and on the continent ; and, secondly, to ascertain whe- 

 ther there existed any trustworthy evidence in proof of the 

 hypothesis that the equivalents of bodies are multiples by whole 

 numbers of the equivalent of hydrogen. To examine these 

 questions he endeavoured to ascertain by careful and often- 

 repeated experiments the equivalents of silver, chlorine, lead, 

 barium, ihercury, and nitrogen, in relation to oxygen. These 

 were selected in consequence of their frequent use in analysis. 

 An error in these could not exist without affecting the equiva- 

 lents of nearly all the other elementary substances. The re- 

 searches on this subject had been lately read before the Royal 

 Society, and would probably, ere long, be pubhshed in some 

 form or other. The general result is, that the atomic weights 

 current in this country are much less exact than those given 

 by Berzelius; that though they had been recommended to 

 British chemists as rigidly correct, they were often very inexact, 

 and had been determined by methods which in some important 

 cases were defective. Further, he finds that as far as experi- 

 mental evidence at present goes, the hypothesis above alluded 

 to is unsupported. In some instances the equivalents are so 

 jiearly simple multiples of that of hydrogen that they may be 

 taken as such without appreciable error ; but in many other 



