Digitalphilologie

Titel

Mines of platinum

Jahr

1826

Ort

London

Nachweis

in: The Philosophical Magazine and Journal 68:342 (31. Oktober 1826), S. 306–307.

Sprache

Englisch

Typografischer Befund

Antiqua; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Fußnoten mit Asterisken; Schmuck: Initialen.

Identifikation

Textnummer Druckausgabe: IV.62
Dateiname: 1826-Decouverte_d_une-2-neu

Statistiken

Seitenanzahl:	2
Zeichenanzahl:	2828

Weitere Fassungen
	Découverte d’une mine de platine dans la Colombie. – Importance de cette découverte pour les arts. – Mines d’or et de platine des monts Ourals en Russie (Paris, 1826, Französisch)
	Mines of platinum (London, 1826, Englisch)
	Account of the Discovery of a Mine of Platinum in Columbia, and of Mines of Gold and of Platinum in the Uralian Mountains (Edinburgh; London, 1826, Englisch)
	Mines de Platine et d’Or découvertes dans les monts Ourals, en Russie (Paris, 1827, Französisch)
	Miniere di platino e d’oro scoperte ne’ monti Orali, in Russia (Mailand, 1828, Italienisch)
	Kopalnie Uralskie złota i platyny (Warschau, 1829, Polnisch)

|306|

mines of platinum.

At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences of Paris, held onthe 18th July last, Baron Humboldt communicated verballyto the Academy the following interesting information. M. Boussingault, a celebrated French chemist, has just dis-covered a mine of platinum at Antioquia in the department ofCundinamarca. Hitherto this precious metal, so valuable inthe arts, had only been found in the Urals in Russia, in Bra-zil, and in the provinces of Choco and Barbacoas, on thecoasts of the South Sea, but always in alluvial lands. As thiscircumstance renders the discovery of M. Boussingault muchmore interesting, M. Humboldt has been anxious to establishit. He observes, that in all lands where platinum has beendiscovered, there are found at a very great depth the trunksof trees well preserved. It cannot, therefore, be supposed,that, in this case, transplanted earth has been mistaken forreal rocks decomposed in situ. With regard to the platinumfound in the province of Antioquia by M. Boussingault, therecan be no doubt that this metal exists there in real veins inthe valley de Osos, and it is sufficient to pound the materialswhich these veins contain, in order to obtain from them, bywashing, the gold and the platinum which they contain. M. Humboldt had not himself visited the country whereM. Boussingault has discovered the platinum and gold; butexperience has proved to him that almost all the auriferoussoils of America belong to the formation of diorite and sye-nite, and it is in this formation that M. Boussingault has dis-covered the platinum mixed with gold. The valley de Osos, where the platinum occurs in veins, being very near the pro-vince of Choco, from which it is separated only by a branchof the Cordillera of the Andes: this circumstance accounts forthe presence of the same metal in the alluvial soils of the val-ley de Osos. M. Humboldt announced at the same time, that mines ofplatinum had recently been found in the Uralian Mountains,in the government of Perma. These mines are so rich thatthe price of platinum fell nearly one-third at St. Petersburg.Hence we may reasonably expect that this valuable metalwill cease to bear that high price at which it has hitherto beensold. In 1824, the auriferous and platiniferous soil of the |307| Ural produced 286 puds, which gave 5700 kilogrammes ofmetal, having a value of nineteen millions 500,000 francs.The mines of all Europe together do not produce annuallymore than 1300 kilogrammes. Those of Chili yield only3000, and all Columbia furnishes only 5000. The Ural yields at present as much gold as was ever ob-tained from Brazil at the time when its mines were most pro-ductive. The maximum, which took place in 1755, was 6000kilogrammes of gold. At present Brazil yields only 1000.— Brewster’s Journal.

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