The Atomic Weight of Hydrogen (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from The Atomic Weight of Hydrogen Some years ago the writer1 carried out a series of determinations of the quantitative composition of water, from which the value I was calculated for the atomic weight of oxygen on the hydrogen basis. The opinion was expressed, in the paper, that the true value was probably within one part in a thousand of this num ber and that it was rather below than above the value reported. Several years later Morley2 published an account of his elaborate determinations of the densities of hydrogen and oxygen and of the composition of water by weight, which led him to the value I for oxygen, or for hydrogen (o 2: Meanwhile Richards3 had shown that copper oxide retains occluded gases obstinately, a fact which was partly known to me at the time of my work, but which was not as carefully considered as it should have been. There was obtained in each of my experiments, at the end, a small amount of gas which was assumed to be nitrogen on the basis of one or two rather imperfect analyses of the earlier samples. The weight of this gas, calculated as nitrogen, was subtracted from the weight of the hydrogen, giving, on the average, a correction of about one part in a thousand. Several years after the publication of Morley's results it occurred to me that this gas came, very probably, from the copper oxide, and that its weight should be subtracted from the weight of the oxygen instead of from that of the hydrogen. On applying the correction in this manner the value (or was found. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.