<A MONTHLY. 0* 
Vol. XIX. 
COLOMBO, SEPTEMBER 1st, 1899. 
No. 3 
GRAPHITE : 
ITS FOHMATION AND MANUFACTURE.* 
By E. G. AcHEsoN, Member of the Franklin Institute. 
Early Ilistoru and Recognition. 
N the year 1779, Karl Wilhelm 
Scheele, a young apothecary in 
the town of Koping, Sweeden, 
a remarkable genius as an inves- 
tigator, and then in the 37th 
year of his age, discovered that 
graphite had an individuality 
quite apart from molybdenum 
sulphide, with which it had been until then con- 
founded. He discovered that when it was treated 
with nitric acid, carbon dioxide was produced, 
whereas molybdenum sulphide when oxidised pro- 
duced a white earth, and he drew the conclusion 
that it must be some kind of carbon, likely of the 
general natural of coal. 
Previous to this discovery by Scheele, a group 
of minerals including graphite and certain ores of 
lead, molybdenum, antimony, and manganese (lead 
sulphide, molybdenum sulphide, antimony sulphide> 
manganese dioxide) were believed to be one and 
the same substance, or, at least, members of the 
same family. This opinion was due to their out- 
ward resemblence, and the fact that they produced 
marks on paper. This confusion naturally led to 
the application of the same name or names to 
each o£ the members of the group, and as graphite 
had not been recognised by any peculiarity dis- 
tinctively its own, it received the names molbdsena, 
plumbago, graphite, and black-lead, which were 
used in an indiscriminate manner for each of the 
several substances. The name molybdana was 
dropped at any early date, probably immediately 
following the discovery by Scheele, and there is no 
known reason why plumbago and black-lead should 
not have followed its lead, for graphite is the only 
one of the series not misleading and entirely ap- 
propriate, meaning as it does " I write," from the 
Greek word graphoe. 
_ * From Advance Sheets of the Journal of the Franlc- 
lin Institute, June, 1899. 
Graphite does not seem to have received any 
particu'ar attention from chemists from the time of the 
discovery by Scheele until the year 1800. During 
the last quarter of the eighteenth centuary, the 
diamond was the subject of much interest, in a 
chemical sen^e, and in the hands of the French 
chemists it was shown to produce carbon dioxide 
when ignited in air. In 1796 Smithson Tannant 
showed that equal weights of charcoal and diamond 
yielded equal weightsof carbon dioxide on burning and 
they were therafter associated together as carbon. 
In 1800 Mackenzie added graphite to the carbon 
group, by showing that it also, in equal weight, 
produced the same weight of carbon dioxide (Roscoe). 
Thus, in the opening year of the present century, 
graphite was proven to be an elementary substance 
Charcoal, diamond, graphite were then recognised 
as three district allotropic form of the element 
carbon. 
Distribution. 
Graphite, in a more or less pure state, ia quite 
freely distributed over the earth, but only in a few 
places is it found under conditions of purity, quan- 
tity, ease of mining, refining, and transportation 
to market that permit of a profitable businesi 
being made of it. Statistics for the six years 1890 
to 1895, inclusive, give the world's production aa 
7.3,751, 57,220, 54,280, 55,810, 46,951 and 53,955 short 
tons. This is an average yearly production of 56,994 
tons — over 156 tons every day of the year — of • 
material known to the majority of men as black- 
lead or plumbago, useful only for writing on paper 
and polishing stoves. 
The production during the years mentioned was con* 
tributed to by Austria, Cevlop, Germany, Italy, 
United States, Canada, Japan, India, Kussia, 
Great Britain, and Spain, the proportionate quanti- 
ties furnished by these countries being in the order 
given (Mineral Inilustrij, 1898J. It will be observed 
that Great Britain is, with but one exception, the 
sallest producer ; indeed 45 tons cover the total 
amount reported, and this mined in 1895. For 
several centuries Great Britain was one of, or the 
largest producer; in fact, in the earliest days of 
the industry, it was probably the only one. The 
graphite from the Borrowdale mines in Cumberland 
was famous as the best for making pencils. In the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries these mines 
were bo productive as to yield an annual revenue 
£40,000, although they were only worked a few 
weeks in the year for fear of exhausting tbem 
(Boscoe). 
Great indifferences exist in the structure and purity 
of the graphites furnished from the various mines. 
Mother Nature was seemly not content with mak- 
ing carbon appear in three forms, charcoal: diamond, 
and graphite, but extended her labours on graphite ; 
and, to the further confusion of the metallurgist and 
the chemist, made it a family of two members, 
crystalline and amorphous, two district allotropic 
forms of the allotropio substance, graphite. The pro- 
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