THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ALUMINUM. 397 



I do not know all the obstacles that may interfere in different 

 countries against the efforts of the state to remove the danger. I 

 know that in France and Germany the good intentions of the 

 Government and Chambers will be strongly opposed by the inn- 

 keepers ; but I know, too, that no obstacles are insurmountable to 

 a political power strongly impenetrated with love of its country. 

 Translated for The Popular Science Monthly from the Revue 

 Scientifique. 



THE PAST AND FUTURE OF ALUMINUM. 



BY M. J. FLEUEY. 



AT the Universal Exposition of 1855 appeared for the first 

 time an ingot of that silver-white metal from clay, as Sir 

 Henry Roscoe called it. Aluminum does not seem to have at- 

 tracted much attention from the public at that time. When it 

 was exhibited again at London in 1862 and at Paris in 1867, in 

 the shape of utensils of every sort, and jewelry, it had at first a 

 success of curiosity, provoked by its extraordinary lightness of 

 weight. But the difficulty of its manufacture and the consequent 

 high price at which it was held, the delicacy of its color so easily 

 soiled, caused it to be gradually abandoned in some of the arts, 

 for which it was at first thought a new resource had been discov- 

 ered. Its alloy with copper, aluminum bronze, notwithstanding 

 its remarkable qualities of resistance and its beautiful golden 

 color, hardly kept its place in industrial practice. Perhaps alu- 

 minum would have passed out of mention, except in laboratories, 

 where its place is always marked, if its early history had not been 

 associated with that of the progress of electricity, and if, by the 

 aid of this new agent, its manufacture had not become so easy 

 and so economical as to permit a considerable extension of its 

 applications, and to provoke a revival of the hopes which had wel- 

 comed its beginning. These hopes are reasonable and are founded 

 on the solid basis of the most serious scientific considerations. 

 We have a right to expect much from this metal, an extensive 

 use of it, and its substitution in many cases for others now at our 

 service, provided it can be furnished at a price corresponding with 

 that of other materials known in the arts. 



Whether it presents itself in the earth of colors varying from 

 yellow to brown, of which our fields are composed ; or showing 

 itself pure white, as in kaolin, clay is nothing else than a combi- 

 nation of alumina, silica, water, and other foreign bodies in varying 

 proportions. Of this abundant earth, which forms approximately 

 about half of the crust of the globe, the mass is about equally 

 divided between silica the substance of rock crystal, and alumina ; 



