Re: MtMan-List: Re: AMM-List: aluminum

["Glenn Darilek" <llsi@texas.net>]

Although aluminum is the most abundant metal in the crust of the earth, it
was not used in antiquity because it has never been found in a free metal
form.  Aluminum is found naturally as a silicate or oxide.   It was first
isolated in 1825 by  Hans Christian Oersted
This is from Funk and Wagnalls New Encyclopedia (1979)

For aluminum, a clear distinction must be made between when it was
discovered and when it was produced in quantities even sufficient to
determine its properties, much less make cutlery.

The 1995 Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia says that

"In 1845, after many years of experimentation, Friedrich WOHLER succeeded
... in producing globules of aluminum large enough to allow the
determination of some of its properties.   In 1854, Henri Sainte-Claire
Deville ... produced the first commercial quantities of aluminum in a small
plant near Paris."

Funk and Waggnals says the Napoleon connection was through Napoleon III, who
funded Henri-Sainte-Clair Deville experiments to produce aluminum.  It was
so much a curiosity that Deville exhibited it at the Paris Exposition in
1855.  Napoleon III (1808-1873) was the nephew of the Napoleon who sold us
Louisianna.

I have heard the "conventional gray beard wisdom" that aluminum metal
existed in the period, but it was so expensive that only nobility could
afford it.  Even this is not true, unless you possiblly consider flecks of
the stuff smaller than globules as being of any utility.

Iron Burner