488 
SECOND REPORT- 1832 , 
Table— continued. 
Elements. 
Zirconium ... 
Thorium. 
Iron. 
Manganese... 
Nickel. 
Cobalt . 
Zinc . 
Cadmium ... 
Lead. 
Tin. 
Copper. 
Bismuth. 
Mercury. 
Silver. 
Gold. 
Platinum ... 
Palladium ... 
Rhodium ... 
Iridium ... | 
Osmium. 
Discovered by 
Klaproth. 
Berzelius. 
Country. 
Berlin. 
Stockholm. 
Sweden. 
Year. 
1789 
1828 
Scheele. Sweden. 1774 
Cronstedt. . 1751 
Brandt ............ 1733 
Described by Agricola, 1520. 
Stromeyer. Germany. 1817 
Mentioned by Paracelsus, 16th century. 
Reduced by 
Country. Year. 
Berzelius, i 
Berzelius. 
Gahn. Sweden. 
Bergman. 
Known to Wood, assay-master, Jamaica, 1741. 
Wollaston. England. 1803 
Wollaston. England. 1804 
Descotils. France. I 
Tennant. England. J 
Tennant. 
1824 
1774 
1775 
In making out this list I have departed from the usual course 
of attributing the discovery of the metals, &c., to those who 
reduced them to their simplest state. I have ascribed the 
discovery to the individual by whom any of the compounds of 
the body with oxygen or hydrogen were first made known or 
first shown to differ from every other known body. To reduce 
an oxide to the metallic state, is much the same in importance 
as to produce a new compound of one already long known, and 
cannot be compared to the actual addition of a new element, or 
of the binary compound of a new element, to our previous know¬ 
ledge. The only exception to this rule is the splendid discovery 
of the alkaline metals by Sir Humphry Davy: but this did 
not derive its main importance from the knowledge it gave us 
of the metals themselves,—singular and highly valuable as that 
knowledge has proved,—but from the new law of nature which 
it revealed, and the new field which it opened to our view, en¬ 
larging at once the domains and rectifying the principles of 
the science. 
The following Table presents a synopsis of the actual state 
of our knowledge in regard to the most important binary com¬ 
pounds of the elementary substances with each other. 
