Dr. Alfred's Partheil's Paper, Page 2

we reach the molecule of water. A molecule of water cannot be divided into further parts that are still water, but it can be divided into ions, into atoms, into electrons, into parts of another order.

Aristotle errs when he accuses the atomists of going against sense in their assumption. We can divide a box of oranges only until we reach the single orange. If we continue to divide the single orange into the skin and the carpels, we reach parts of a different order, the same as when we divide the molecule of water into one atom oxygen and two atoms hydrogen, and just like the parts of the orange, the skin and the carpels, can be divided into cells so can the atoms under certain conditions be divided into the electrons.

The atoms of each element have a certain weight, and the atoms of different basic constituents differ from each other in a characteristic way through their different weights. While we cannot absolutely establish these atomic weights, we are well able to determine the relationship of these weights to each other. It is well known that these proportional numbers, referring to oxygen = 16 as their unit and expressing the relative weights of the atoms of the basic constituents are called the atomic weights.

The problem of finding the relationships between the atomic weights and the properties of the elements has occupied chemists for a long time already. Already in 1817 Doebereiner has called attention to these simple relationships. In 1829 he showed that there are groups of three elements like chlorine, bromine, iodine, or like calcium, strontium, barium that are very similar to each other in their chemical reaction while having a constant difference of atomic weights. He called these groups triads. There are also triads with a slightly different atomic weight e.g. osmium, iridium and platinum.

In 1865 Newlands proposed the law of octaves which describes the observation that in the row of elements by order of rising atomic weight each seven elements with different chemical properties are followed by a new row of seven elements in a way that the 8th with the first, the 9th with the second and so on corresponds in their main properties.

Remarkable progress in chemical research was made when in 1869 D. Mendelejeff and about the same time Lothar Meyer showed that the main properties of the elements