Sloane, Hans

On one of these expeditions he may have found in a spring near his home at New London, Connecticut, the rock fragment of columbite which his grandson sent to Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) in London (4). ... 

Sir Hans Sloane, 1660-1753. Founder of the British Museum. Physician, pharmacist, traveler, and collector of books, manuscripts, coins, medals, gems, antiquities, and natural history specimens. His asbestos specimens were purchased from Benjamin Franklin (63). 

Sweet, Jessie M., Sir Hans Sloane Life and mineral collection, Natural... 

Early accounts of the discovery of columbite differ in several important respects. While examining some minerals in the British Museum, half a century after the death of its founder, Sir Hans Sloane, Charles Hatchett became interested in a small, dark, heavy specimen which bore some resemblance to the Siberian chromate of iron on which he was then making some experiments. 

Upon referring to Sir Hans Sloane s catalogue, said Hatchett before the Royal Society on November 26, 1801, I found that this specimen was only described as a very heavy black stone, with golden streaks which proved to be yellow mica and it appeared that it had been sent with various specimens of iron ores to Sir Hans Sloane by Mr. Winthrop of Massachusetts. The name of the mine, or place where it was found, is also noted in the catalogue the writing, however, is scarcely... 

Sir Hans Sloane, 1660-1753. British physician and collector. Editor of the Philosophical Transactions. President of the Royal Society. The books, pictures, coins, and specimens which he bequeathed to the nation became the nucleus of the British Museum. The specimen of columbite in which Hatchett discovered niobium was from this collection. 

In the following January, Nicholsons Journal stated that the mineral was sent with some iron ores to Sir Hans Sloane by Mr. Winthrop of Massachusetts [sic], and there is therefore every reason to believe that it came from some of the iron mines in that province [sic] (12). 

Since Sir Hans Sloane was only sixteen years old when Governor Winthrop died, Shepard s statement that the columbite had been sent to Sloane by Governor Winthrop is probably erroneous. Hatchett s remark in 1801 that many Indian names (such as Nautneague) which were used forty or fifty years ago. . . are now totally forgotten implies that he understood that the original specimen of columbite must have been labeled in about the middle of the eighteenth century (12). He referred to the sender, moreover, not as Governor Winthrop but as Mr. Winthrop. 

In an article on the life and mineral collection of Sir Hans Sloane, Jessie M. Sweet states that The only specimen which fortunately is still in the Mineral Collection is the original fragment of columbite (B. M. 60309), of which a brief account may be given here. Sloane describes it in the catalogue of Metalls, No. 2029, as A very heavy black stone with golden streaks. . . from Nautneague. From Mr. Winthrop (40). 

In 1940 Dr. C. A. Browne wrote Mr. Allyn B. Forbes of the Massachusetts Historical Society for information regarding the manuscript paper which Francis B. Winthrop of New York is said to have sent to this Society. According to Nicholsons Journal for 1806, this manuscript referred to the mineral which F. B. Winthrop s ancestor had given Sir Hans Sloane and to the place where it was found (43). However, no trace of such a document could be found. Francis B. Winthrop (1754-... 

The mountain flax, said Kalm, or the amiant with soft fibres, which can easily be separated, is found abundantly in Pensylvania [sic].. . . Mr. Franklin told me that, twenty and some odd years ago, when he made a voyage to England, he had a little purse with him, made of the mountain flax of this country, which he presented to Sir Hans Sloane. I have likewise seen paper made of this stone.. . . ... 

No other method of electrification (other than by friction) had previously been known. After Hans Sloane had taken over the Presidency of the Royal Society in 1727, Gray belatedly began to receive the recognition that his electrical research deserved. He was awarded the Royal Society s first Copley Medal in 1731 for his discovery of conduction, and the second in 1732 for his work on electrostatic induction. Despite his electrical experiments, and a fondness for tobacco, he survived until 1736. He has no monument in stone, but is memorialized in verse by Dictionary Johnson (Samuel Johnson 1709-1784) [v]. He received the Copley Medal twice (in 1731 and 1732) and became FRS in 1733. 

I. Bernard Cohen, Isaac Newton, Hans Sloane and the Academie royale des sciences, in Melanges Alexandre Koyre, ed. I. Cohen and R. Taton (Hermann, 1964), volume 1. 

Cohen, Isaac Newton, Hans Sloane W. A. Smeaton, E. R Geoffroy Was Not a Newtonian Chemist, Ambix 18, 1971, 212-214. 

Extract of a Letter from Dr. Brook Taylor, F. R. S. to Sir Hans Sloan, dated June 25,1714. Giving an Account of some Experiments relating to Magnetism, ... 

John Winthrop the Younger (1606 to 1676) was fond of minerals and made a hobby of collecting them. In a spring near his home in New London, Connecticut, he found a black rock, now known as columbite. His grandson sent this to Sir Hans Sloane (1660 to 1753) in London, who handed it over to the British Museum. There it lay until 1801 when Charles Hatchett examined it. Hatchett was the son of a prosperous London coach-builder in Long Acre, a well-known mineralogist and chemist, and one of the Founders of the Animal Chemistry Club (1809) which met alternately at the houses of Sir Everard Home and of Hatchett himself. He was working on some chromium minerals in the British Museum and concluded that this black mineral contained a new element, which he called columbium the mineral in consequence was later called columbite, as mentioned above. It subsequently transpired, however, that the columbium was not a simple element, but a mixture of two. The discovery was made in this way. 

Holland and Italy and made contacts with contemporary authorities within science. In London he became acquainted with Sir Hans Sloane, president of the Royal Society. Etieime-Francois is known in the scientific literature as Ge-offroy the Elder. He had a younger brother, Claude-Joseph, who became a pharmacist and is known as Geoffrey the Younger. 

Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) in London was an active man of science, president of the Royal Society and editor of the distinguished journal Philosophical Transactions. He was also an interested collector. Books, pictures, coins and minerals from his collection were placed at the disposal of the British Museum. Sir Hans had close contact with John Winthrop Jr in Connecticut, who in 1734 was elected as a member of the Royal Society. John donated more than six hundred specimens of minerals from New England, which were incorporated in the mineralogical collection of the British Museum. This turned out to be of great importance in the history of element discoveries. At the beginning of the 19 century the element niobium, or columbium as it was called, was discovered in the mineral collection from New England. 

Cohen IB (1964) Isaac Newton, Hans Sloane and the Academie Royale des Sciences. In Melanges Alexandre Koyre - 1 L Aventure de la Science, vol. 1, Histone de la Pensee - Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne. Hermann, Paris, pp 61-116... 

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