Abstract
IN the Chemical Section of the Meeting of Bohemian Naturalists in Prague, on May 27, B. Brauner (Fellow of The Owens College) communicated a paper on the atomic weight of didymium. The author's former determinations gave the number 146.6, but after further purification he finds now didymium to be 145.4. Both samples were entirely free from any known earth metal. Assuming that both numbers are true, the author remarks that the only explanation which can be given, is that “didymium” is a mixture of two (or more) bodies, one, whose atomic weight is smaller than 145.4, and a second, whose atomic weight is greater than 146.6. Thus it is clear that the chemistry of didymium becomes as complicated as that of “erbium,” which was thought to be a simple earth, and later on was split up into the following earths, viz. real (1) erbia, (2) terbia, (3) scandia, (4) ytterbia, (4) thullia, and (6) holmia. The evidence, that the mineral cerite contains other earth metals besides cerium, lanthanum, and didymium, has been given by the author some time ago (Monatshefte iii. 1) when he found that the spark-spectrum of the portions intermediate between lanthanum and didymium, as well as of those between didymium and cerium, contains new lines, not belonging to any known cerite metal. The author is pursuing his researches in the laboratories of the Owens College.
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Chemical Notes . Nature 26, 137–138 (1882). https://doi.org/10.1038/026137b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/026137b0