The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-09
vANADIUM AND TTs USES.

I
t.If an Irresistible force strike an
immovabIe object, what will hap
pen 2. That may be an ancient trap
for the youthful 1ogictan and phi
losopher but the developments OF
modern warfare have aim ost made it
a practical question The efforts to
produce an Irresistible steel projec-
tile have, at least until very recently,
been pretty well counterbalanced by
those seeking to produce an indie
fstructible arT1or to resist them. Out
of this situation first grew the im-8
portance of what a. few years go was
a comparatively little known subs
stance This substance is the metallic
element known as vanadium- In
1896 vanadium steel was used in the
production of some arnor plates in
France. Tests OF these plates DEM
onstrated that they were much.
tougher and more highly resistant
than like plates made without the
use OF vanadium- At onca the e1e-
nent became important and the de-
lnand for it grew further uses for 1t
we're Hiscovereds and now Vanadiun
steel is one of the most important
products Of the iron industry.
According to an Instructive article
in the March number of the Monthly
Bulletin of the Pan American Union
Washington, d. c., vanadIum is not
such a3recent discovery as many per-
sons think. Tt seems that he had not
himself repudiated his own discovery
the honor of finding the new element
would have been accorded to Andres
Manuel Del Rio, a professor OF
uaineraIogys in the Royal School OF
Mines of the City of Mexico In
1851 the professor, in examining
some brown lead ores from the mines
of Zirnapans in what is now known
as the state OF HidaIgo, believed that
he had discovered a new element dff-
ferent from chromium and uranium
and this he named eritronium. II
was in reality what we now know as
IvanadIum. The discovery was a. gem
lsuine one, but unfortunately the Mex
Iican professor was a little foo Ila51cT
under the glamour of the French
school when Collet Descostils pub
Ished an article in which he stated
that Del Rios eritronfum was moth
ing more than impure cfaop1ill4n Del
| Rio accepted the French professors
Judgment and in 1894 disayowad his
lclafrras of discovery and admitted that
| the substance was a lead. efarornafe5
sabseuuent events showed thai TSai
| that the element does not belong 81,
/ the chromium group It was NOT mn
til 1880 that the Swedish scientist n
c. Sefstron, rediscovered the eIe-
n1ent among the slags of the Taberg
iron ores and gave it the name OF
vanadi1lrn. name probably derived
/ from what might Be termed =. family
name in Morse mythology. yaTlir Or
vana. to which group Freyfa1 the
Morse Venus, belonged.
Vanadiiarn is q silver white r,assl
i which readily oxfdizes; IL has an
atornic weight Of 51.2. is non-11ap-
i netic has, a very high eiectrirsI "a
/ sistfvity, and meIts ateabout 1850 de-
i grees e As an ALLOW of iron nos.
lever. its melting point is about ann
degrees lower. It is one of the r,1ost
IwideIy 6lisse minated elements al
though commercially atvatfafle de
posts are COMPENSATORY rare. If has
been found in several OF the western
/ states Of the United States in swe-
/ den. Australia, Spain. England A.
i gentina Chile, and in Peru II is
/ upon the last named country. how