Western liberal. (Lordsburg, N.M.) 1887-1919, 1890-03-21
A WONDERFUL METAL.

in tho uses to which It can be put resem-
Lles silver. Above all its properties, the
one which distinguishes 1t most is its light
ness.
II we compare IL with the ordinary met
ais we shall fnd zinc. and tin are two and
one.half times as heavy, iron almost three
times, copper three and one-half times.
silver four times, lead four and one half
times, Cold seven and one.hali times, and
platinum over eight times as heavy as al
u,ninium, bulk for bulk.
The hghtness Of aluminium is, therefore,
som ethinR extraordinary and makes it a
very valuable metal for soms particular
purpose. Besides this it also possesses
other Import properties which will be men
toned further on.
Less than seventy years ago no one had
ever seen metallic aluminium. The sub
stances which contain it and from which
It can he. extracted are numerous and
abundant, and 1t wOs for a long tine sus-
pected that common alum and china clay
and minerals like corundum held some
undiscoye metallic base; but not until
the year 1927 was any one successful in is
olating aluminium from these substances.
In that year q Germaa chemist named
Wohler accomplished this feat, and in the
town of GottinRen, where he lived, a
statue has been recently erected to per-
petuate hts memory, the discovery Of al
minimum being the most important Of the
many services which he rendered to cheml-
cal science.
Aluminium is, therefore child Of the
Nineteenth Century, no older than old
people now living, and hrst put to practi-
cal use in quite recent years.
Why was not aluminium discovered and
used until 40 recently? The reasons are
not obscure The earth is full of alumni
ium, yet. as is the case with many other
metals, it is not found in nature in free,
metallic state, but is always combined
with oxygen or other elements. The sub.
stances which contain it are very plenti-
full, eveu much more so than the minerals
containing iron.
The combination of aluminium and oxy
gen alone forms the substance called alu
nina. which occurs in nature as the min
erals corundum, sapphire, ruby and emery
Alumna and silica occur combined togeth
er in most Of rocks which form the earth
crust, in the soils which cover the lelds, il
the clay which is baked iuto bricks for oui
houses or worked INTO porcelain to adorr
our tahles.
EseIy one knows Of the salt called
alum, whose very name betrays aluminium
AS Its principal constituent, and whlcl
contains aluminium aud another metal
potassium, combined with sulphuric acic
and water.
Away up in Greenland. at town callct
lWgtuk, so far north that ships can only
reach it during three or four months eyerl
scar, is found large deposit of cryolite, {
pure mineral containing aluminium, so
dlum and auorine, which is brought by
ship-loads to philadelphia.
From this brief mention of the occur
ence of Of aluminium in nature, it is seer
that aluminium ore can be had very cheap
ly and in unlimited quantity; indeed, min
eralogists who have studied carefully thu
materials that form the earth's crust sal
that if the earth, is OF the same compo
sition all through, as it is on the surface
about one-eighth of its entire weight mus
bo aluminium.
Then why, with so much of it to be had
is not aluminium in as common use Il
iron? Because it Is extremely difficult t.
extract the metal from Its ore, and for thi
reason alone the metal is costly, The i'm
mense blast furnaces are fed with iron ore
coal and limestone, in proper proportions
and one furnace will produce as much a
two hundred tons of pig iron in day
But no metallurgist has ever been able t.
do anything like that with aluminium ore
The way Wohler succeeded was as fol
lows: He took alumina, combined witt
oxygen, and by mixing it with charcoa
and passing chlorine gas over it, at higl
heat, formed a compound of aluminium
and chlorine He then brought this sub
stance into contact with metallic potas
stun, which is able to take away cblorin
from aluminium, and thus the latter meta
was left alone, or isolated by the reaction
Potassium, however, is very eostl
metal aud dangerous to handle, because |
explodes so easily, so that Wohler's alum
inium cost many times its weightin gold
Thirty years elapsed after its discovery be
fore it was made cheaply enough to be Q
any use.
Without the labors of Henri St. CLAIR
Deville, professor of chemistry in Paris
aluminium might even now be seen onl
in chemical museums, looked at as a g7ea
curiosity. This gentleman succeeded il
making metallic sodium at price YER
low when compared with potassium an
found that it would reduce aluminim chic
ride quite as we'll rs potassium. He wa
thus able to produce aluminium with muc
less danger and much more cheaply.
At the French Exhibition Of 1855, th
Rrst large bal nf aluminium ever produce