greater attraction for that element and thereby raptures its atoms, showing up new elements. Not all men of science are willing to admit the atomic theory; although it explains satisfactorily all the known laws of chemical combination. Dalton, accepting the teachings of the ancients as to the atomic constitution of matter, was the first to propound a truly chemical atomic theory; a quantitative theory, declaring that the atoms of the different elements are not of the same weight, and that the relative atomic weights of the elements are the proportions, by weight, in which the elements combine. All previous theories, or suggestions, had been simply qualitative. Berzelius, the renowned Swedish chemist, advancing Dalton's atomic theory, laid the foundation stones of chemical science, as it now exists. Since his day, by the new methods of spectrum analysis, elements unknown before have been discovered; and researchers in this field are now boldly questioning whether all the supposed elements are really undecomposable substances, and are conjecturing that they are not. On this subject Sir Henry Roscoe says:-- "So far as our chemical knowledge enables us to judge, we may assume, with a considerable degree of probability, that by the application of more powerful means than are known at present, chemists will succeed in obtaining still more simple bodies from the so-called elements. Indeed, if we examine the history of our science, we find frequent examples occurring of bodies, that only a short time ago were considered to be elementary, which have been shown to be compounds, upon more careful examination."