1838-1898. British chemist who worked as an
industrial chemist; he prepared in 1863 the
first periodic table of the elements arranged
in order of atomic weights, and pointed out
the `Law of Octaves' whereby every eighth
element has similar properties. He was
ridiculed at the time, but five years later
Russian chemist D I Mendeleyev published a
more developed form of the table, also based
on atomic weights, which forms the basis of
the one used today.