A Dictionary of Arts: Vanadium.

A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines; containing A Clear Exposition of Their Principles and Practice

by Andrew Ure, M. D.;
F. R. S. M. G. S. Lond.: M. Acad. M. S. Philad.; S. PH. DOC. N. GERM. Ranow.; Mulh. Etc. Etc.

Illustrated with nearly fifteen hundred engravings on wood
Eleventh American, From The Last London Edition.
To which is appended, a Supplement of Recent Improvements to The Present Time.

New York: D Appleton & company, 200 Broadway. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 148 Chestnut St.
MDCCCXLVII

1847

VANADIUM, is a metal discovered by Sefström, in 1830, in a Swedish iron, remarkable for its ductility, extracted from the iron mine of Jaberg, not far from Jönköping. Its name is derived from Vanadis, a Scandinavian idol. This metal has been found in the state of vanadic acid, in a lead ore from Zimapan, in Mexico. The finery cinders of the Jaberg iron contain more canadium than the metal itself. It exists in it as vanadic acid. For the reduction of this acid to vanadium, see Berzelius's Traité de Chimia, vol. iv. p. 644. Vanadium is white, and when its surface is polished, it resembles silver or molybdenum more than any other metal. It combines with oxygen into two oxydes and an acid.

The vanadate of ammonia, mixed with infusion of nutgalls, forms a black liquid, which is the best writing-ink hitherto known. The quantity of the salt requisite is so small as to be of no importance when the vanadium comes to be more extensively extracted. The writing is perfectly black. The acids colour it blue, but do not remove it, as they do tannate of iron: the alkalis, diluted so far as not to injure the paper, do not dissolve it; and chlorine, which destroys the black color, does not, however, make the traces illegible, even when they are subsequently washed with a stream of water. It is perfectly fluent, and, being a chemical solution, stands in want of no viscid gum to suspend the color, like common ink. The influence of time upon it remains to be tried.