The next attempt was made in 1864. British chemist John Newlands presented in Chemical News a classification of the 62 known elements. Newlands noticed recurring trends in physical properties of the elements at recurring intervals of multiples of eight in order of mass number; based on this observation, he produced a classification of these elements into eight groups. Each group displayed a similar progression; Newlands likened these progressions to the progression of notes within a musical scale. Newlands's table left no gaps for possible future elements, and in some cases had two elements at the same position in the same octave. Newlands's table was ignored or ridiculed by some of his contemporaries. The Chemical Society refused to publish his work. The president of the Society, William Odling, defended the Society's decision by saying that such "theoretical" topics might be controversial; there was even harsher opposition from within the Society, suggesting the elements could have been just as well listed alphabetically. Later that year, Odling suggested a table of his own but failed to get recognition following his role in opposing Newlands's table.