Geoffroy the Younger

Ger. Weisse Masse, white mass later Wisuth and Bisemutum) In early times bismuth was confused with tin and lead. Claude Geoffroy the Younger showed it to be distinct from lead in 1753. 

Bismuth - the atomic number is 83 and the chemical symbol is Bi. The name derives from the German weisse masse for white mass (the name later altered to wismuth and bisemutum) from the color of its oxides. The ancients did not distinquish bismuth from lead. The French chemist Claude-Francois Geoffroy (the younger) showed that bismuth was distinct from lead in 1753. 

French nobleman Claude Geoffroy, the Younger White, brittle metal often found with copper, tin, and lead its alloy, called Wood s metal, has a low boiling point making it useful in triggering fire alarms. 

Mathieu-Frangois Geoffroy had chosen pharmacy as the career for his elder son Etienne-Frangois and medicine for his younger son. Etienne preferred medicine, however, while Claude-Joseph followed his father s calling and became a famous apothecary and chemist, Geoffroy the Younger. 

As early as 1738 C.-J. Geoffroy (Geoffroy the Younger) noticed that when most kinds of tin were heated they gave off fumes which seemed to contain arsenic. J. F. Henckel, in his translation of de Respour s Mineral-Geist, described a test for arsenic in tin. In 1747 A. S. Marg-graf reported the presence of arsenic in all the specimens of tin which he examined (73, 74). 

Robert Boyle stated in 1661, in his Sceptical Chymist, drat sal ammoniac is composed of muriatic (hydrochloric) acid and the volatile alkali (ammonia) and told how to separate the urinous and common salts (27). In 1716 Geoffroy the Younger demonstrated the composition of sal ammoniac and prepared it by sublimation (28, 29). In the same year, the Jesuit missionary Father Sicard described its preparation at Dam ire or Damayer, one mile from die City of El Mansura in the Nile Delta. In twenty-five large laboratories and several smaller ones, it was sublimed in glass vessels from die soot of die burned dung of camels and cows, to which, he said, had been added salt and urine. Lemere, the French consul at Cairo, described die process in 1719 for the Academy of Sciences in Paris, but made no mention of salt or urine (29, 30, 31). 

Geoffroy the Younger, Beobachtmngen uber die Natur und Mischung des... 

Geoffroy the Younger, Untersuchung verschiedener Vitnole, nebst eimgen... 

Bismuth — (Ger. Weisse Masse, white mass later Wisuth and Bisemutum), Bi at. wt. 208.98040(1) at. no. 83 m.p. 271.4°C b.p. 1564°C sp. gr. 9.79 (20°C) valence 3 or 5. In early times bismuth was confused with tin and lead. Claude Geoffroy the Younger showed it to be distinct fromlead in 1753. It is a white crystalline, brittle metal with a pinkish tinge. It occurs native. The most important ores are bismuthinite or bismuth glance (BijSj,) and bismite (Bi O, ). Peru, Japan, Mexico, Bolivia, and Canada are major bismuth producers. Much of the bismuth produced in the U.S. is obtained as a by-product in refining... 

Boron (B) can be identified by its characteristic green flame, which was first reported by Geoffroy the Younger in 1732 but it was not until 1808 that elemental boron was first crudely isolated by three different scientists ... 

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