A Streetcar Named Desire (Williams) 139
Stromeyer, Friedrich 287–8, 292
strontia 178, 179
Strontian (Argyllshire) 202, 350, 380
strontium 178, 182, 184, 202, 350, 361
Suger, Abbot 306–7
Suijver, Freek 361, 364
sulphur 4, 37, 48, 62, 110–12, 125, 130, 136, 151, 154, 186, 228, 358, 361, 371, 382
and bacteria 107, 110
and mercury reaction 97–100, 102
as disinfectant 105–6, 137
association with the Devil 76, 103–5, 350
in alchemy 47, 345
in foods 106–7
Sulphur (ship) 107–11
Sulphur (Oklahoma) 350
‘Sur une Lanterne’ (Satie) 336
Sutters Fort (California) 22
Sutton Hoo (Suffolk) 47–8
Swann, Donald 371
Sweden 11, 49, 72, 151, 242, 349–59, 363, 371, 379, 380, 387 see also Stockholm, Uppsala, Ytterby
Swedish Academy of Sciences (Stockholm) 27, 151, 373
‘Sylva’ (Evelyn) 66
Syria 199
Szydlo, Andrew 120–23
Taíno people 20
Talbot, William Fox 236
Tandy, Peter 388
tantalum 260, 284–6, 355, 374, 379
Tantalus 284
Tawell, John 241
technetium 71
Telford, Thomas 53
tellurium 71–2, 187, 358, 380
The Tempest (Shakespeare) 268
Tenerife 109
Tennant, Smithson 39–42, 329
Tennyson, Alfred 113
Tenochtitlan (Mexico) 18
Tepitapa (Nicaragua) 110
terbium 349, 359, 374, 386
Terminator 2 (film) 305
Terre Vert 287, 313
Thackeray, William 182, 185
thallium 186–90, 195
Thames river 120, 148
Thatcher, Margaret 47, 156
The Theory of the Leisure Class (Veblen) 16, 257
The Thinker (Rodin) 212
Thomas, Nicolas 101
Thompson, Francis 156
Thompson, Hunter S. 340
Thomson, James 53
Thomson, William 243–5
Thor 326
thorium 168, 326, 367–8, 371
The Three Californias see Gold Coast (Robinson)
Thule 374
thulium 349, 355, 359, 374
tin 51, 85, 98, 219, 227, 252–3, 279, 286, 375
and bronze 204–5
and pewter 207
as one of the ancient metals 31, 103, 227, 246, 250, 278
as cheap 11, 207–9, 263
casting 4, 205–6
mines 201–4
Phoenician sources of 199–201
sound world of 209–12
Tin Men (film) 263
titanium 7, 60, 85, 184, 280–83, 286
as product brand 9
used in craft 276–85
Titian 307
Tokyo 158
Tonbridge (Kent) 61
Toole, John Kennedy 338
Topolino 272
A Tour though England and Wales (Defoe) 237
transuranium elements 90, 351, 360 see also named elements
Travers, Morris 332–4, 335, 391
Tremain, Rose 208
The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony (Valentine) 345–6
Tunbridge Wells (Kent) 54, 79, 81
tungsten 4, 32, 57, 58, 60, 174, 202, 284, 373
Turgenev, Ivan 82
Turkey 199
Turku (Finland) 373, 378
Turner, J. M. W. 54
Turnworth (Dorset) 62
Tutenkhamun 13, 276
Twain, Mark 22–3, 385 see also Clemens, Samuel
type metal 217–19 see also lead
Uffington white horse 267
Ulysses (Joyce) 253
Underworld (DeLillo) 304
United States of America 71, 78, 184, 225, 242, 247, 260, 290, 330–31, 336, 342, 350
University College London 100, 138, 211, 311, 335
Unto This Last (Ruskin) 135
Uppsala 349, 352–5, 363
Uppsala University 355, 363
uranium 7, 56, 71, 78, 161–2, 163, 292, 324, 349, 372, 386, 387, 389
and the atomic bomb 11, 76, 221
and nuclear reactions 72–3, 394, 396, 397
and glass 12, 78, 165
Uranus (planet) 372
Uravan (Colorado) 324
Urban VIII (Pope) 237
Utopia (More) 17, 148
Utrecht University 56, 361, 364
Valentia (Ireland) 244–5
Valentine, Basil 345, 346
van der Krogt, Peter 56
van Gogh, Vincent 226, 289, 290
van Ruisdael, Jacob 137
Vanadis 325–7
vanadium 323–6, 329
Vancouver 97, 245
Vasari, Giorgio 273–4
Västmanland (Sweden) 353–4, 378
Vauquelin, Nicolas-Louis 298, 324, 327–9, 372
Vaxholm (Sweden) 386
Veblen, Thorstein 15–16, 21, 257
Venel, Gabriel 150
Venezuela 19
Venice 309
Venturi, Robert 341
Venus (planet) 112
verdigris 151, 180, 286, 316
Vergara (Spain) 32
Vermilion 93, 100, 287, 291, 319 see also mercury
Verrazzano, Giovanni da 239
Vertesi, Janet 124
Victoria (United Kingdom) 141, 182, 242, 245
Victoria and Albert Museum (London) 228
Vienna 167, 366, 368
Viking (spacecraft) 51
‘Vincent’ (song) 226
Virginia City (Nevada) 23
Viridian 287
Volta, Alessandro 155, 240
Voltaire 19, 21
vulcanization 112
Wagner, Richard 25–6, 49, 211
Waldron, Peter 296
Wallerius, Johan 355
Walpole, Horace 181
Walt Disney Concert Hall (Los Angeles) 282
Walton, William 253, 255
Warsaw 130, 161
Washington, DC 258, 265, 279
Washington, George 258–9
The Waste Land (Eliot) 7, 253
Watt, James 123, 137
Waugh, Evelyn 250, 298
Wayland see Wieland
Wedgwood, Josiah 124
Weider, Ben 315
Weimar 298, 302
Wellington, Lord, the ‘Iron Duke’ 47
Wells, H. G. 73
Welsbach, Baron von see Auer, Carl
West Side Story (Bernstein) 300
Westminster Abbey 213, 242
Wheatstone, Charles 241–2
Whitby, Max 56–61, 386
The White House (Washington, DC) 265, 267
Wichita (Kansas) 262
Wickens, Obadiah 61
Wieland the Blacksmith 48, 49
Willamette meteorite 44–5
Williams, Tennessee 139
Windsor, Duchess of see Simpson, Wallis
Winkler, Clemens 7, 85
Winsor & Newton 287, 296–7, 320
Winsor, William 296
The Wizard of Oz (film) 331
Wöhler, Friedrich 325–6
Wolfe, Tom 341
Wollaston, William Hyde 38–43
Womack, Robert 23
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Baum) 206, 330
The Woodlanders (Hardy) 61–2
The World Set Free (Wells) 73
Wren, Christopher 236–8, 246, 247
Wright, David 204
Wright, Frank Lloyd 281
Wright, Joseph 117, 123–4
Wright, Russel 262
xenon 86, 174, 334
Xi’an (China) 92
X-ray analysis 27, 212, 319, 388
X-rays 161, 193, 397
Yale University 196
Yangtze
river 93
Young, Graham 189–90
Ypres (Belgium) 129–30, 133–4
ytterbite see gadolinite
ytterbium 359, 374, 386
Ytterby mine 349, 373–4, 378–86, 388
yttria 373–4
yttrium 351, 359, 374, 375, 378, 379, 386, 388
Zeus 284
Zimbabwe 18
zinc 10, 37, 154, 182, 185, 209, 279, 288, 292, 349, 395
and statuary 246–8
bars 252–3
used in batteries 5, 155, 176, 240, 245
used in building 248–50
used in coffins 251
zircon 328
zirconium 329, 344, 379
Zola, Emile 66
Acknowledgements
It must have been Andrea Sella who provided the spark that lit the fuse for this book a few years ago when he drew my attention to the curious fact that euro bank notes rely upon the element europium for their security markings. The fuse was laid long ago, however, at a time when it was hardly considered decent to explore connections between the sciences and the arts. I thank my teachers, and especially Mike Morelle and Andrew Szydlo, for encouraging the transgression that has led to this present explosion. My brother John sharpened memories of these school times.
Great thanks go to my literary agent Antony Topping at Greene & Heaton, who saw that there was a different book to be written about the elements and believed that I could write it. I am immensely grateful to Venetia Butterfield at Viking Penguin for commissioning such a self-indulgent project, and to her colleagues who pitched in with their own examples of the elements in literature, and to Sara Granger at Penguin and Andrew Cochrane at Clays, the printer of this book, who even looked into the origins of new-book smell for me. Grant Gibson, the editor of Crafts magazine, commissioned an article that enabled me to rehearse some of the themes I explore here. My editor Will Hammond introduced me–too late, obviously–to the term ‘inkhorn’, and then took the time to see that I didn’t come across as one. My copy editor David Watson skilfully spared me other blushes.
I would also like to thank those writers, artists, craftspeople, curators, scientists, historians of science and others who shared some aspect of my fascination with the elements: Santiago Alvarez, Marité Amrani, Paola Antonelli, Peter Armbruster, Ken Arnold and James Peto and Lisa Jamieson at the Wellcome Collection, London, Peter Atkins, Fiona Banner, Paola Barbarino, Fiona Barclay, Geoffrey Batchen, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent, Jim Bettle, Michael Bierut, Lauren Bloemsma of the Telluride Historical Museum, Hasok Chang, David Clarke, Ole Corneliussen and Yanko Tihov and those behind the counter at Cornelissen’s artists’ supplier, Amelia Courtauld, Malcolm Crowe, Alwyn Davies, Igor Dmitriev, John Donaldson, Darby Dyar, who described the spectroscopic inspection of the surface of Mars, Matthew Eagles and Simon Cornwell, enthusiasts for sodium street lamps, Michelle Elligott, Richard Emmanuel-Eastes, Martha Fleming, Hjalmar Fors, Katie George, Irene Gil Catalina, Victoria Glendinning, Lisha Glinsman, who discovered that it was lead that gave Rodin’s Thinker his bottom, Antony Gormley, Clare Grafik at the Photographers’ Gallery, Karl Grandin and Anne de Malleray at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Carol Grissom, Domingo Gutierrez, the mayor of Boron, California, Eva Charlotte and Lutz Haber, Hans de Heij, Julian Henderson, Richard Herrington, Kate Hodgson, Erika Ingham, Frank James at the Royal Institution of Great Britain, David Jollie and Keith White at Johnson Matthey, Graeme Jones, John Jost of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Chris Knight, Susanne Kuechler, Peter Lachmann, Charles Lambert, Ron Lancaster, Petra Lange-Berndt, Anders Lundgren, Clare Maddison of Contemporary Applied Arts, Jim Marshall, Marcos Martinón-Torres, Pauline Meakins, Andrew Meharg, Andries Meijerink, Anne Mellows at the Museum of Brands, London, Jacqueline Mina, Mark Miodownik, Zoe Laughlin and Martin Conreen, keepers of the materials library at King’s College London, John Morgan, Andrew Motion, Tessa Murdoch, Thierry Nectoux, Margaret Newman at the Royal Naval Museum, who told me about the various ships Sulphur, William Newman, Pati Núñez, Peter Oakley, Yuri Oganessian, Cornelia Parker, Tim Parks, Simon Patterson, David Poston, Pekka Pyykko, Renny Ramakers, Jeffrey Riegel, Charlotte Schepke, Ann Marie Shillito, the late Sir Reresby Sitwell, Hans Stofer, Freek Suijver, Camilla Sundvall, Grainne Sweeney and Alex Evans at the National Glass Centre, Sunderland, Peter Tandy, Nicolas Thomas, Jan Trofast, Janet Vertesi, Luba Vikhanski, Peter Waldron and Paul Robinson and the staff of Winsor & Newton, Jo Warburton, Martijn Werts, Gull-Britt Wesslund, Max Whitby, Gavin Whittaker, David Wright.
My thanks are also due to the staff of the Cambridge University Library, the very design of which does so much to facilitate the kind of boundary-crossing exploration I have attempted. John Emsley’s magisterial Nature’s Building Blocks was never far from my side, and a number of websites, notably those maintained by Peter van der Krogt and Theodore Gray, furnished me with additional background.
Above all, I thank my wife Moira and son Sam, who offered encouragement and showed the greatest enthusiasm for this odd and wonderful project.
Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Norfolk, June 2010
About the Author
HUGH ALDERSEY-WILLIAMS is the author of numerous books on architecture, design, and science, including Panicology and The Most Beautiful Molecule, which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Norfolk, England.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive updates about your favorite authors.
Other Books by Hugh Aldersey-Williams
British Design
Panicology (with Simon Briscoe)
Zoomorphic
Findings
The Most Beautiful Molecule
World Design
New American Design
Credits
Jacket design by Alison Forner
Jacket illustration Courtesy of Mary Evans Picture Library
Copyright
PERIODIC TALES. Copyright © 2011 by Hugh Aldersey-Williams. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First published in 2011 by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Books Ltd, London.
FIRST U.S. EDITION
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EPub Edition © FEBRUARY 2011 ISBN: 978-0-06-207881-0
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* The answer is indium.
* Almost certainly. I learn from the printers of this book that chlorine will probably not have been used for bleaching the paper, and that
even if it was, there would be no residual odour on the pages. Curiously, though, you may still be able to catch a whiff of the battlefield here: recent Finnish research has suggested that the distinctive ‘new book’ smell may arise from hexanal, an organic by-product of the paper-making process, which, like phosgene, smells of new-mown grass.
* De Re Metallica wasn’t successfully translated into English until 1912, the job finally done by the mining engineer and future American president Herbert Hoover and his wife, Lou Henry, a Latin scholar. It seems fitting to be able to report that in 2014 the US Mint will issue a Herbert Hoover dollar coin.
* Since writing this, I have been informed that the bell will not now fulfil its destiny, having met an ignominious end when it melted during a power cut.
* In February 2010, IUPAC approved the name copernicium after the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born in 1473 in northern Poland, which was then part of the Prussian Confederation.
Periodic Tales Page 42