" Fourteen bars (or seven crossed) radiate from a centre,
as in iron (1 on Plate IV), and the members of each group--iron, nickel,
cobalt; ruthenium, rhodium, palladium; osmium, iridium, platinum--differ
from each other by the weight of each bar, increasing in orderly
succession; the details will be given later. Manganese is often grouped
with iron, nickel, and cobalt (_see_ Crookes' lemniscates), but its
fourteen protruding bodies repeat the "lithium spike" (proto-element 5) and
are grouped round a central ovoid. This would appear to connect it with
lithium (2 on Plate IV) rather than with fluorine (3 in Plate IV), with
which it is often classed. The "lithium spike" re-appears in potassium and
rubidium. These details, again, will come out more clearly later.
VI. _The Star._--A flat star, with five interpenetrating tetrahedra in the
centre, is the characteristic of neon and its allies (4 on Plate IV)
leaving apart helium, which, as may be seen by referring to 3, Plate IV,
has an entirely different form.
There are thus six clearly defined forms, typical of classes, with
two--lithium and fluorine--of doubtful affinities. It is worthy of notice
that in diatomic elements _four_ funnels open on the faces of tetrahedra;
in triatomic, _six_ funnels on the faces of cubes; in tetratomic, _eight_
funnels on the faces of octahedra.
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