Greene County herald. (Leakesville, Miss.) 1898-current, 1915-08-13
ToRx3 AT ooSMzNS ar A7H NXrv

! !: !: ! !: |
UswnzzzN HE credit for discovering the
~A metallic element vanadium al
most but not quite, belongs
to Andres Manuel Del Rio
professor of mineralogy in the
- Royal School of Mines Of the
U16TSZT7N\AN City of Mexico The honor
ul2HN(3k%H9Iu would be wholly his had he
xS40A@s2I not himself repudiated his own
discovery.
Del Rio was horn in Madrid November 10, 1854,
and graduated from the University of Alcaia de
Henares in 1880. On account OF his extraordinary
aptitude In the natural sciences, and particularly
I'm chemistry he was pensioned and sent by the
government to study In Germany, France and Eng
land. He spent about twelve years in those coun-
tries, principally In the study of mineralogy and
mining and was associated with the leading scien-
tists among others Lavoisier. After his return to
3Spain he named, in 1894, by royal order as
! one of the group of professors to establish the
Royal School of Mines in Mexico City. The royal
order named Del Rio professor of chemistry.
but on his request this was changed to mineraogy.
The school was opened in April, 1895 In 1920 Del
Rio sent deputy to the Spanish Cortes,
where he championed the of Mexican indie
pendence. He returned to Mexico in 1924, but In
1929 on the expulsion of the Spaniards he went to
the United States. He afterwards returned, and
died in the City of Mexico on May 20, 1S49. The
district of Andres Del Rio in the state of Chihua-
hua, where the city of Batopilas and the mines of
the name are located, is called after the dis
tinguished scientist.
In 1901 Prof Del Rio in examining some brown
lead from the mines of Zimapan, in what is
the state of Hidalgo believed that he had dis
covered a element different from chromium
and uranium and this he named erithronium. 1t
was in reality what we know vanadium.
The discovery was a genuine one, and had the
matter rested there the name that Del Rio gave
the new element would have been its name now,
and he would have been the undisputed discoverer
thereof. But unfortunately the Mexican professor
was little too much under the glamour of the
French school, and so when Collet Descostils pub
lished article in which he stated that Del Rios
erithronum nothing more than impure chro-
MUM Del Rio accepted the French professors
judgment and in the Anales de Ciencas Naturales
of Madrid in 1904 disavowed his former claim Of
discovery and stated that the substance was
lead chromate. Del Rio had been right and the
French school wrong, for the element does not
even belong in the chromium group. So the mat
ter rested until in 1880 the Swedish scientist N.
G. Sefstroem, rediscovered the element among
the slags of the Taberg iron ores and named 1t
vanadium which name it still BEARS 1t is some
times stated that the name chosen by Sefstroem
was in honor of the Scandinavian goddess vana-
dis. This is not strictly correct. In the Morse
mythology the gods were divided into two
stocks Aesir and Vanir, or Asa and Vana. Njoerd,
Frey and Freyja were of the stock Vanir, hence
vanadis. The word may be taken the
name of a number of gods and goddesses al
though perhaps most often used in connection
with Freyja, the Morse Venus.
Neither Del Rio nor Sefstroem. nor later Ber-
xelius obtained the pure element, although Ber-
zelius published what he thought to be its atomic
weight, 1877 and the formae for it's oxides. The
English chemist, Sir Henry E. Roscoe. in 1868
demonstrated that Berzelius Incorrect; that
he and other prior investigators had dealt with
ovid of he aio and hat In.
stead of belonging to the chromium group of
elements vanadium should be placed In the group
with arsenic and phosphorus.
yanadium is a silver-white metal and readily
oxidized. II has atomic weight of 512, is
nonmagnetic has very high electrical resis-
tfvity, and melts at about 1880 degrees G. It
is one of the most difficulty reduced and hardest
OF the metallic elements. Fortunately for its
In the arts, 1t is not necessary to reduce the
metal to its pure state. Such reduction would
be too costly. 1t can be reduced, however quite
easily as alloy. particularly as an alloy o.
iron ferrovanadium, containing approximately
one part of vanadium and two parts of iron
Again fortunately, this alloy has a melting point
300 degree c. to 1910 degrees c., sufficiently low
to further alloy with molten STEEL which would
be difficult in the pure vanadium having melt
ing point over 300 degrees G higher.
vanadium is one of the most widely dissent
mated of all the elements. although commercially
available deposits comparatively rare. It
is found In most of the rocks, in cays and shales
and in the ashes of plants. In addition to Mex
leo. where It first discovered, vanadium has
been found In Colorado, Utah, Oklahoma, Ne
vada, New Mexico, and other parts of the United
States in Peru. Sweden, Australia, Spain, Eng
land, Turkestan, Chilli and Argentina.
The chief ores from which vanadium is or
may be derived are patronite carnotite. roscoe
lite vanadinte and asphaltite Coal is source
of vanadium. Ash from the Rockville Colorado
coal gave ~ per cent vanadium oxide. Coal
from the Mendoza district in Argentina contains
about ave pounds of vanadic acid per ton. II Is