One into the other. But in that part of the periodic table, in which the evolution of the elements is still proceeding, each place is seen to be occupied not by one element but on the average, for the places occupied at all, by no less than four, the atomic weights of which vary over as much as eight units. It is impossible to believe that the same not be true for the rest of the table, and that each known element may be a group of non-separable elements occupying the same place, the atomic weight not being a real constant, but a mean value of much less fundamental interest than has hitherto supposed. Although these advances show that matter is even more complex than chemical analysis alone has been able to reveal, they indicate at the same time that the problem of atomic constitution may be more simple than has been supposed from the lack of simple numerical relations between the atomic weights.

Master of Science (MS)

Thesis