They
proved to be rather more difficult to deal with than hydrogen but were
manageable. Oxygen was found to consist of 290 minor atoms and nitrogen of
261. Their grouping will be described later on. The interest and importance
of the whole subject will best be appreciated by a rough indication of the
results first attained. The reader will then have more patience in
following the intricacies of the later discoveries.
The figures just quoted were soon perceived to have a possible
significance. The atomic weight of oxygen is commonly taken as 16. That is
to say, an atom of oxygen is sixteen times heavier than an atom of
hydrogen. In this way, all through the table of atomic weights, hydrogen is
taken as unity, without any attempt being made to estimate its absolute
weight. But now with the atom of hydrogen dissected, so to speak, and found
to consist of 18 somethings, while the atom of oxygen consisted of 290 of
the same things, the sixteen to one relationship reappears: 290 divided by
18 gives us 16 and a minute decimal fraction. Again the nitrogen number
divided by 18 gives us 14 and a minute fraction as the result, and that is
the accepted atomic weight of nitrogen.
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