Abstract
THE relative abundance of the different elements has always been of great interest to chemists. Attention was directed to the relation between abundance and atomic number first by Harkins (Jour. Amer. Chem. Soc. 39, p. 856, 1917; also NATURE, April 14, 1921, p. 202), who showed that elements of even atomic number predominated to a very marked degree not only in the earth's crust but also in such extra-terrestrial matter as meteorites. Since there is now available definite information on the constitution, isotopic or otherwise, of so many of the elements, it is of interest to extend this inquiry to individual species of atoms. The accompanying diagram (Fig. i) represents the relative abundance of the different types of atoms composing the first 39 elements. Although these number less than half the elements known yet, owing to the great preponderance of the lighter elements in terrestrial matter, they represent a surprisingly large percentage, being more than 99-8 by weight of all such matter available for chemical analysis.
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ASTON, F. Atomic Species and their Abundance on the Earth. Nature 113, 393–395 (1924). https://doi.org/10.1038/113393a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/113393a0