18 Biography of Berzelius. 



places, although always in very small quantities. Wohler 

 directed especial attention to the fact, that the acid of the 

 new metal was contained in the lead ores of Zimapan, in 

 Mexico, in which, as early as 1801, Del Rio discovered a 

 new metal, and called it Erythronium ; hut, misled hy the 

 authority of Collet-Descotils, who declared it to be chromium 

 (with which Vanadium has certainly some similarity), he 

 afterwards admitted that his discovery was an error. 



His next researches, which were upon Tellurium, were of a 

 similar nature. Berzelius had already instituted experiments 

 with very minute quantities of this metal, in so many respects 

 interesting, but he was compelled to discontinue them for want 

 of material. When Wohler sent him a considerable quantity 

 of this rare metal, which he had prepared from the telluric 

 bismuth of Schemnitz, he again commenced the investigation. 

 He first shewed how this metal can be prepared in its purest 

 state. He then prepared all the compounds of tellurous 

 acid (peroxide), as well of telluric acid, discovered by him, 

 with bases, and indeed the different isomeric modifications 

 which these acids form. These researches are likewise so 

 complete, that they have fully developed the history of this 

 remarkable metal in all its relations. 



The last great investigation by Berzelius, is that upon 

 meteoric stones. He undertook this with the intention of 

 studying these bodies, as my brother and Nordenskjbld had 

 already done, as species of rocks, and, by this means, to de- 

 termine what individual minerals they contained. The im- 

 mediate inducement was a meteoric stone sent to him by 

 Reich enbach, which had fallen a year previously in Moravia. 

 But besides this, he examined three other earthy meteoric 

 stones, and two masses of metallic iron. Berzelius inferred 

 from his analyses that meteoric stones consist entirely of such 

 minerals as are found upon the earth, and that they certainly 

 do not contain any elementary constituent which is not met 

 with in terrestrial bodies. It was only in the meteoric stone 

 of Alais that he found carbon in an unknown state of combi- 

 nation : this stone, when placed in water, disintegrated and 

 fell to powder, which had a mixed smell of clay and hay. This 

 shewed that if, as Berzelius considered, meteoric stones origi- 



