Chemical Science. 625 



13. A NEW^METAL, VANADIUM, ASSOCIATED WITH IRON. 

 (Sefstrom.) 



This new metal, which has an interest far beyond that of many new 

 substances, because it is connected with the physical and valuable 

 properties of iron, was discovered by M. SefstrOm, and has been briefly 

 described in a letter from M. Berzelius to M. Dulong, from which the 

 following is an extract : 



M. Sefstrom, director of the School of Mines at Fahlun, whilst 

 engaged in examining a variety of iron remarkable for its extreme 

 softness, observed the presence of a substance, the properties of which 

 differed from those of all other known bodies, but its quantity was so 

 small as would have rendered it tedious and expensive to collect suf- 

 ficient for a correct examination of its properties. This iron was 

 from the mine of Taberg in Smoland : the ore merely contained traces 

 of the substance. Finding that the pig iron contained far more of 

 this principle than the wrought iron, M. SefstrOm thought that the 

 scoricG formed during the conversion of the pig iron into wrought metal 

 might be a more abundant source, a conjecture confirmed by ex- 

 perience ; so that sufficient having been procured, he went to M. 

 Berzelius during the Christmas holidays, to complete its examination. 

 For the present the substance is called Vanadium, after a Scandinavian 

 divinity. 



Vanadium combines with oxygen to form an oxide and an acid. 

 The acid is red, pulverulent, fusible, and on solidifying becomes 

 crystalline. It is slightly soluble in water, reddens litmus, and forms 

 yellow neutral salts and orange bisalts. Its combinations with acids 

 or bases has the singular property of suddenly losing their colour 

 they resume it only on becoming solid again, and being then redis- 

 solved, preserve their colour. This phenomenon appears to have 

 some analogy with the two states of phosphoric acid and of phos- 

 phates. 



Hydrogen, at a white heat, reduces vanadic acid, leaving a cohe- 

 rent mass, having a feeble metallic lustre, and being a good con- 

 ductor of electricity, but it is not certain that the reduction is com- 

 plete. Vanadium, thus obtained, does not combine with sulphur 

 when heated to redness, in its vapour. The oxide of vanadium is 

 brown, or nearly black, and dissolves readily in acids. The salts 

 are of a deep brown colour, but, by the addition of a little nitric acid, 

 effervesce and become of a fine blue colour. 



Vanadic acid combined with another acid is reduced by sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, and even by nitrous acid, to that blue matter which ap- 

 pears to be a compound of vanadic acid with the oxide of vanadium, 

 analogous to those compounds formed by tungsten, molybdenum, 

 iridium, and osmium. The oxide and acid of this metal together 

 produce other combinations, green, yellow, and red, all soluble in 

 water; 



When the oxide of vanadium is produced in the humid way, it is 



