THE ELEMENTARY SUBSTANCES.
On the following page is a list of the sixty-six elementary substances
now generally recognized as such. Their respective symbols and their
atomic weights, both in exact and approximate numbers, are also given.
These substances, then, nearly seventy in number, are those from which
are made up all material things now known to man. While it is not
necessary for any one to retain such a list in memory, every person who
desires any considerable knowledge of chemistry should be acquainted
with each name and the symbol attached to it, and should know something
of the natural sources and the properties of the substances designated.
Six Suggestions Conveyed by this Table.
A careful and intelligent reading of the list affords several important
suggestions. The following are some of them:—
_First. The elements are not very numerous._ They are in fact very few,
as compared with the countless number of substances they may form by
their proper combinations.
_Second. They are however sufficiently numerous to produce the many
substances recognized in nature._ For, consider how human language may
have many words and yet all these may be spelled out by combinations
of few letters. Some English dictionaries register over a hundred
thousand words, yet these are all made by the combinations of less than
thirty letters. Now it is easy to comprehend how the few letters of an
alphabet may be even still further combined in various ways so as to
produce additional words almost without limit: in a similar manner it
may be easily imagined that the sixty-five elementary substances have
ample capabilities for giving rise not only to the compounds now known,
but to yet more and more, almost without limit. It is true that the
chemist discovers that some of the chemical elements appear to have a
limited power of union, but in others he finds an apparently unbounded
capacity to form new arrangements and combinations.
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The Chemist’s Elementary Substances.
===========+==================+================+===============
Name | | Exact | Approximate
of Element.| Atomic Symbol. | Atomic | Atomic Weight.
| | Weight. |
-----------+------------------+----------------+----------------
Aluminum | Al | 27.0090 | 27.
Antimony | Sb (Stibium) | 119.9550 | 120.
Arsenic | As | 74.9180 | 74.9
Barium | Ba | 136.7630 | 136.8
Bismuth | Bi | 207.5230 | 207.5
Boron | B | 10.9410 | 10.9
Bromine | Br | 79.7680 | 79.8
Cadmium | Cd | 111.8350 | 111.8
Caesium | Cs | 132.5830 | 132.6
Calcium | Ca | 39.9900 | 40.
Carbon | C | 11.9736 | 12.
Cerium | Ce | 140.4240 | 140.4
Chlorine | Cl | 35.3700 | 35.4
Chromium | Cr | 52.0090 | 52.
Cobalt | Co | 58.8870 | 58.9
Copper | Cu (Cuprum) | 63.1730 | 63.2
Didymium | D | 144.5730 | 144.6
Erbium | E | 165.8910 | 165.9
Fluorine | Fl | 18.9840 | 19.
Gallium | Ga | 68.8540 | 68.9
Glucinum | G or Be | |
| (Beryllium) | 9.0850 | 9.1
Gold | Au (Aurum) | 196.1550 | 196.2
Hydrogen | H | 1.0000 | 1.
Indium | In | 113.3980 | 113.4
Iodine | I | 126.5570 | 126.6
Iridium | Ir | 192.6510 | 192.7
Iron | Fe (Ferrum) | 55.9130 | 55.9
Lanthanum | La | 135.5260 | 138.5
Lead | Pb (Plumbum) | 206.4710 | 206.5
Lithium | Li | 7.0073 | 7.
Magnesium | Mg | 23.9590 | 24.
Manganese | Mn | 53.9060 | 53.9
Mercury | Hg (Hydrargyrum)| 199.7120 | 199.7
Molybdenum | Mo | 95.5270 | 95.5
Nickel | Ni | 57.9280 | 57.9
Niobium | Nb | 93.8120 | 93.8
Nitrogen | N | 14.0210 | 14.
Osmium | Os | 198.4940 | 198.5
Oxygen | O | 15.9633 | 16.
Palladium | Pd | 105.7370 | 105.7
Phosphorus | P | 30.9580 | 31.
Platinum | Pt | 194.4150 | 194.4
Potassium | K (Kalium) | 39.0190 | 39.
Rhodium | Rh | 104.0550 | 104.1
Rubidium | Rb | 85.2510 | 85.3
Ruthenium | Ru | 104.2170 | 104.2
Scandium | Sc | 43.9800 | 44.
Selenium | Se | 78.7970 | 78.8
Silicon | Si | 28.1950 | 28.2
Silver | Ag (Argentum) | 107.6750 | 107.7
Sodium | Na (Natrium) | 22.9980 | 23.
Strontium | Sr | 87.3740 | 87.4
Sulphur | S | 31.9840 | 32.
Tantalum | Ta | 182.1440 | 182.1
Tellurium | Te | 127.9600 | 128.
Thallium | Tl | 203.7150 | 203.7
Thorium | Th | 233.4140 | 233.4
Tin | Sn (Stannum) | 117.6980 | 117.7
Titanium | Ti | 47.9997 | 48.
Tungsten | W (Wolframium) | 183.6100 | 183.6
Uranium | U | 238.4820 | 238.5
Vanadium | Va | 51.2560 | 51.3
Ytterbium | Yb | 172.7610 | 172.8
Yttrium | Y | 89.8160 | 89.8
Zinc | Zn | 64.9045 | 64.9
Zirconium | Zr | 89.3670 | 89.4
-----------+------------------+----------------+-------------------
_Third. The elements are mostly uncommon._ Only about one-sixth of
them possess names that are familiar to ordinary readers. Thus carbon,
copper, gold, iron, lead, mercury, nickel, silver, sulphur, tin, zinc,
are almost the only ones in the list that can be said to suggest
familiar things. Indeed some members of this list exist in the earth
in extremely small quantities; but man by his ingenuity and industry
has gathered up even these and brought them near to the hand of every
civilized being. Thus gold exists in the earth—so far as man has access
to the earth—in only very minute amounts; yet gold has a multitude
of common uses beside its employment in coinage. Various forms of
decorative art, like gilded lettering on books, afford familiar
examples. So also mercury, which in the ordinary thermometer is very
familiar to every one, exists in the earth in but minute amounts.
When the chemist examines still more narrowly the composition of the
terrestrial globe, he discovers an inequality yet more extraordinary
than that hinted at. Thus it appears that probably one-half of our
entire planet consists of a single substance (that is, oxygen) and
that one-quarter of it consists of another single substance (that
is, silicon). Since an amount equal to three-quarters of the earth’s
matter, by weight, is made up of but two elements, the remaining ones
must necessarily exist in much smaller proportions.
The following table, given by Roscoe and Schorlemmer, shows the average
composition of the earth’s crust—so far as it is accessible to human
investigation by means at present known:
Percentage Composition of the Earth’s Solid Crust (by Weight).
Oxygen, 44.0 to 48.7 per cent.
Silicon, 22.8 36.2 ”
Aluminum, 9.9 6.1 ”
Iron, 9.9 2.4 ”
Calcium, 6.6 0.9 ”
Magnesium, 2.7 0.1 ”
Sodium, 2.4 2.5 ”
Potassium, 1.7 3.1 ”
————— —————
100.0 100.0
According to this table, the sum total of the amounts of _all the
elements not mentioned_ may be estimated as less than one-tenth of
one per cent. of the whole. This statement is rendered all the more
striking when it is considered that in this minute fractional part must
be included all coal and all the useful metals, except iron.
Another authority[1] declares that it is probable that an amount equal
to ninety-nine one-hundredths of the entire weight of the solid, liquid
and gaseous matter of our globe, is made up of only thirteen elementary
substances. The elements referred to and their relative proportions are
approximately represented in the diagram following:
[1] Professor J. P. Cooke.
Diagram of the Composition of our Globe (by Weight.)
+---------------------+---------------------+------------+
| | SULPHUR, HYDROGEN, | |
| | CHLORINE, NITROGEN, | 53 OTHERS |
| +---------------------+------------+
| | POTASSIUM, SODIUM, |
| | IRON, CARBON, |
| SILICON, ¼ +----------------------------------+
| | ALUMINUM, } |
| | MAGNESIUM, } ⅙ |
| | CALCIUM, } |
+---------------------+----------------------------------+
| |
| |
| |
| OXYGEN, ½ |
| |
| |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------+
_Fourth. Most of the elements are metals._ This may not appear to the
ordinary reader until he is informed that terminations in _um_, as in
case of aluminum, barium, cadmium, calcium and others are intended to
suggest that the substances so designated are metals. Most of the other
elements having names not terminating in _um_ are called non-metals.
_Fifth. Each chemical element has an atomic symbol_, an abridgement, in
some form, of its name.
_Sixth. Each chemical element has an atomic weight._ As the atomic
weight of hydrogen is 1, without any fraction, it is easily understood
that the weight of one atom of hydrogen is taken as the unit of the
system. An inspection of the numbers given shows that in many cases the
atoms weigh amounts that are very nearly exact multiples of the weight
of an atom of hydrogen.
READING REFERENCES.
Atomic Weights, Calculations of
=Becker=, George F.—Atomic Weight Determinations: a digest of
the investigations published since 1814. (Published as Part IV
of the _Constants of Nature_, in Smithsonian Miscellaneous
Collections, No. 358.) 1880.
=Clarke=, Frank W.—A Recalculation of the Atomic Weights.
(Published as Part V of the _Constants of Nature_,
in Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, No. 441.) 1882.
———— Am. Chem. Jour. iii, 263. (1881.)
Atomic Weights, Periodicity of
=Meyer=, Lothar.—Chem. News, xli, 203.
Atomic Weights, Mendelejeff’s Law of
=Am.= Chem. Jour.—iii, 455.
=Cooke=, J. P.—Chem. Philosophy, p. 265.
=Wurtz=, Ad.—Atomic Theory, p. 154.
Atomic Weights, Arithmetical Relations of
=Hodges=, M. D. C.—Silliman’s Journal, 3d Ser. x, 277.
=Newlands=, J. A. R.—Chem. News, xlix, 198.
Atomic Weight of Oxygen.
=Odling=, W.—Jour. of Chem. Soc. of London, xi, 107.
Atomic Weight of Thallium.
=Cookes=, Wm.—Chem. News, xxix, 14, 29, 39, 55, 65, 75, 85,
97, 105, 115, 126, 137, 147, 157.
Atomic Weights, Prout’s Hypothesis of
=Cooke=, J. P.—Chemical Philosophy, 270.
=Clarke=, F. W.—Am. Chem. Journal, iii, 272. (1881.)
=Gerber=.—Silliman’s Journal, 3d Ser. xxvi, 236.
Atoms, Absolute Weight of
=Annaheim=, J.—Jour. of Chem. Soc. of London, xxxi, 31.
Elements, Defunct
=Bolton=, H. C.—American Chemist, i, 1.
Elements, Suggestions that Elements are Compound.
=Lockyer=, J. N.—Nature, Jan’y 2 and 9, also Nov. 6, 1879.
=Hastings=, C. S.—Criticism of above. Am. Chem. Jour., i, 15.