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DESIGN IN NATURE 



THE ELEMENTS AND THEIR COMBINING WEIGHTS 



The present section will be most fitly terminated by the insertion of a table of " elements with their combining 

 weights." The table has been carefully prepared for me by Dr. John Ferguson, Professor of Chemistry, University, 

 Glasgow, whose kindness I have much pleasure in acknowledging. 



The belief in the existence of elements, notwithstanding all that has been written to the contrary, is practically 

 universal. Even such an astute and advanced chemist as MendeleefE regarded the existence of elements as certain. 

 This famous Eussian savant, so late as 1906, in discussing the " Periodic Law," in which some profess to detect 

 a proof of the validity of the assumption of a primordial matter, gave it as his opinion that such a view was un- 

 tenable. He declined to beheve that such an inference was warranted. He saw nothing in the law inconsistent with 

 the idea of the individuality of the elements, holding that until it could be definitely shown that one element 

 could be transformed into another, or that ether and matter were mutually convertible, the elements must be 

 regarded as distinct and separate entities, immutable and unchangeable. 



THE ELEMENTS AND THEIR COMBINING WEIGHTS 



