The Atomic Weight of Silver

Abstract

THE following few lines give a necessary elucidation to my critical note and to the answer given by Messrs. H. B. Baker and H. L. Riley (NATURE, Mar. 5, p. 348). My principal first theoretical argument is based on the interdependence of the atomic weights of the elements silver, nitrogen, and chlorine, resulting from the classical life-work of Richards and his school, in which I have the greatest confidence. If the atomic weight of silver = 107.876, then nitrogen = 14.006±0.0011, and chlorine = 35.456±0.002, most probably 35.458. If we accept Baker and Riley's value, silver = 107.864, then nitrogen would become 13.999, a value exceedingly improbable, especially having regard to the fact that Baxter found recently (Proc. Amer. Acad., 12, 12, p. 699, Dec. 1926) by an extremely careful physico-chemical research the value N = 14.006(7), which confirms the higher atomic weight of silver, namely, 107.876. This important argument was not referred to by Messrs. Baker and Riley.