Our ability to understand, and possibly to predict, the properties of intennetallic compounds on the basis of their structural Information is many times limited by uncertainties about their correct compositions. The unsuspected presence of adventitious impurities in a compound may lead one to draw inaccurate, or equivocal, conclusions about their unexplained behaviors. The occurrence of such situations in the published literature has been quite frequent. For instance, the inadvertent presence of hydrogen impurities in what was thought to be pure calcium prompted Smith and Bernstein^ to assign a hexagonal allotropic form to calcium. Subsequent investigation by Peterson and Fattore^ showed the hexagonal phase was an Intermediate in the binary calcium-hydrogen system. In similar circumstances, an hexagonal allotrope of ytterbium metal was later established as an ytterbium hydride compound.^ Adventitious impurities in an intermetallic compound may stabilize a phase in a particular stnjcture that would otherwise not form in the binary system. Such stabilization processes are probably electronically driven. Examples in literature of impurity-stabilized compounds are vast. Thus, many of the so-called Nowotny phases are, or were thought to be, compounds stabilized by non-metallic impurities."® The presence and stabilizing effects of impurities were not recognized until higher quality reagents and more accurate and thoughtful experimental techniques were available, and there was need to reconsider conflictive information already reported. As an illustration, arguments of dimorphism between a hexagonal and a tetragonal structure for LagSng were clarified by Kwon and Corbett.® They demonstrated that the hexagonal phase was an oxygenstabilized compound, LagSnaO. The structures of intermetallic compounds formed by the combinations of preand post-transition elements can frequently be rationalized by the ZintI prindples from the chemist's point of view. Schafer and coworkers^-® ® have particularly demonstrated that a great many favorable combinations of structures and compositions can be classified as Zinti phases. The ZintI concept,'" in a very simple way, is based on the assumption that the electropositive element, of say a binary phase A^B^, transfers all Its electrons to the electronegative element (B) which uses these extra electrons to form H2(g) Matheson 99.999% •2(9) Matheson 99.5% Ca