Table formatting Trying to cram all that Notes text into a narrow column messes up the table How about something like this instead class wikitable rowspan 2 Z rowspan 2 Elementname Firstobserved orpredicted Firstreport ofcharacterization widely recognized Firstisolation widely known Firstobserverer First personto report characterization usually accepted discoverer Firstisolator colspan 6 Notes rowspan 2 33 rowspan 2 Arsenic 800 CE ca 800 CE ca Geber Geber colspan 6 Discovered and isolated by Geber ca 800 CE George Sarton Introduction to the History of Science cf Dr A Zahoor and Dr Z Haq 1997 Quotations From Famous Historians of Science Cyberistan Albertus Magnus was the first European to isolate the element in 1250 In 1649 Johann Schr der published two ways of preparing elemental arsenic rowspan 2 51 rowspan 2 Antimony 800 ca 800 ca Geber Geber colspan 6 Discovered and isolated by Geber ca 800 CE Basilius Valentinus was the first European to describe the element around 1450 First description of a procedure for isolating elemental antimony in 1540 by Vannoccio Biringuccio rowspan 2 83 rowspan 2 Bismuth 800 ca 1753 Geber Claude Fran ois Geoffroy colspan 6 Discovered by Geber ca 800 Robert Briffault 1938 The Making of Humanity p 195 Later described in writings attributed to Basilius Valentinus around 1450 Definitively identified by Claude Fran ois Geoffroy in 1753 rowspan 2 30 rowspan 2 Zinc 1526 1746 Paracelsus Andreas Sigismund Marggraf colspan 6 Identified as a unique metal by the alchemist Paracelsus but was extracted as a metal since antiquity by Indian metallurgists before 100 BCE but the true nature of this metal was not understood in ancient times rowspan 2 15 rowspan 2 Phosphorus 1669 1669 Hennig Brand Hennig Brand colspan 6 Prepared from urine it was the first element to be chemically discovered rowspan 2 27 rowspan 2 Cobalt 1732 Georg Brandt colspan 6 Proved that the blue color of glass is due to a new kind of metal and not bismuth as thought previously rowspan 2 78 rowspan 2 Platinum 1735 1735 Antonio de Ulloa Antonio de Ulloa colspan 6 First description of a metal found in South American gold was in 1557 by Julius Caesar Scaliger Ulloa published his findings in 1748 but Sir Charles Wood also investigated the metal in 1741 First reference to it as a new metal was made by William Brownrigg in 1750 rowspan 2 28 rowspan 2 Nickel 1751 1751 Axel Fredrik Cronstedt Axel Fredrik Cronstedt colspan 6 By attempting to extract copper from the mineral known as fake copper now known as niccolite rowspan 2 12NEWL