Dear Ben, Gary R, Jerry--
Also in Vol 5 of the chronological edition (page 306 and 307) Peirce speaks
of chemical valency:
BEGIN QUOTE
A straight road between two places, if not regarded itself as a place, is
not a third place but only the pairedness of the two palces it connects.
But a forking road involves a third place. Now no number of straight roads
put end on end will ever have more than two ends aftger all; but forking
roads put end on end with ramify into any number of ends. In like manner,
in chemistry, were there no atoms but univalent ones, that is such as are
capable fo pairing only, there could be no comibination but binary
combinations. Whereas bivalent atoms, or those capable fo uniting with two
others, which are therefore thirds, might give rise to combinations of any
number of atoms. But bivalent atoms may be considered as involving only
secondness in respect to having only two free bonds, and consequently they
can only unite two univalent atoms however they may be arranged and
multiplied. While trivalent atoms because they have three free bonds will
serve to unite any number of univalent atoms.
END QUOTe
I also find on page 393 of the same volume an entry in the Centruy
Dictionary for Element in which Peirce referes to the accepted views of
Mendelejeff and himself (Peirce) provides a listing of 70 elements arranged
in series and eight groups. I leave it to you folks to draw whatever
inferences you may -- nothing fruitful springs to my mind.
Cheers,
Jim Piat
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