ALUMINIUM. 217 



Mexico, Peru; and though iron be almost everywhere, yet 

 that metal, except as iron ore, exists in quantities so small, 

 that for all practical purposes it is absent. Not so with 

 aluminium. Wherever there is clay or the matter of clay, 

 native or manufactured, diffused or aggregated, there we find 

 a magazine of aluminium ; and as if not satisfied with this 

 ubiquity in some of our common things, aluminium must 

 needs enter into the composition of gems, for in the adaman- 

 tine spar, corundum, ruby, and sapphire, it still is there. 

 How enormous, then, the total quantity of aluminium existing 

 in the world must be ! 



