$ 
x 
Aa AA G SEa aaa S a daa a ee 
E ENN ASE As A SIEA 
Derivations of Mineral Names. 139: 
names, but, usually, refer to some scientific work rather than to 
political occurrences. 
TANTALITE is a name given by the Swedish mineralogist Eke- 
berg toa certain mineral in 1802. He thereby expresses the difficul- 
ties and tantalizing perplexities with which he was beset during the 
progress of his analysis of the substance. It is named after Tan- 
talos, the well-remembered mortal favorite of the Olympian deities, 
who so far presumed upon his privileges as to place before them the 
remains of his own son, disguised asa tempting dish. For this 
sacrilege he was condemned to suffer hunger and thirst in the nether 
world, though surrounded by luscious fruits, viands and liquids of 
all kinds, which promptly receded from his grasp whenever he 
reached for them. 
Certainly, the name forcibly expresses the feelings of the baffled 
chemist, while at the same time it affords a glimpse of the status of | 
analytical science in 1802. 
XENOTIMITE.—[In 1832 the famous French mineralogist Beu- 
dant named a mineral Xenotime, apparently from contr. Gr. evoc, 
a stranger, and zzy7, honor. He explained, however, that this 
name was derived from contr. Gr. xevoç, empty, vain, and Teu), 
honor, and added that he intended it to recall the fact that the Swed- 
ish chemist and mineralogist Berzelius vainly thought to have found 
in this mineral the metal Thorium, which he had named (1815) be- 
fore its existence was really established (1828). The honor which 
Berzelius indirectly claimed in the supposed discovery of a new 
element was an empty one in this instance.! 
As Dana appropriately remarks (System Mineralogy, p. 529),. 
“there is a sneer at the great Swedish chemist in the name which 
Should have occasioned its immediate rejection.” If the word were 
correctly formed, so as to express what Beudant intended that it 
should, it would have been Cenotime or Cenotimite : hence the name, . 
as he writes it, fails to convey the implied meaning. Dana has 
accepted the name Xenotime, as he explains, because it “may be- _ 
*“Conformément principes q doptés, nous luisavons 
imposé un nom particulier, qui rappellera que le phosphate d’Yttria a 
été pris pour oxide d’un métal nouveau auquel on avait donné le nom 
de Thorium, apliqué aujour d’hui au métal découvert dans la Thorite.’’ 
—Traite de Mineral. 1832. 
