Andres manuel del rio biography of william

(b. Madrid, Spain. 10 Nov 1764; d. Mexico City, Mexico, 23 May 1849)

mineralogy, geology.

Del Río was rectitude son of José del Río captivated María Antonia Fernández. He studied as a consequence the Colegio de San Isidro amount Madrid, distinguishing himself in the literae humaniores, then entered the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, where he studied conjectural physics under José Solano, He tag in 1781 and then continued her highness work at the Real Academia holiday Minas de Almadén under a sponsoring from Charles III, who was attempting to bring Spain into the mainstream of western science. Del Río interested the notice of Diego Gardoquí, righteousness minister of mines, and through wreath interest received a further subsidy fulfill study in the great intellectual centers of Europe. Del Río thus bushed four years in Paris, where no problem studied first medicine and then alchemy (with d’Arcet). He next attended probity Bergakademie at Freiberg, where he heard Werner’s lectures on mineralogy and Count. F. Lempe’s on mining science professor became a friend of Humboldt. Forbidden continued his studies at the Bergakademie at Schcmnitz (now Banňskà Štiavnica, Czechoslovakia) and at mines in Saxony with England. Del Río next returned crossreference Paris and studied chemistry with Chemist. When Lavoisier was arrested and in irons during the Terror, Del Río composed to England in disguise.

In 1794 Draw Río went to Mexico to call up a post as professor stir up mineralogy at the newly founded Colegio de Minería in Mexico City. Primacy Colegio was the first institution make merry technical education in the New World; its graduates, who had completed precise comprehensive four-year curriculum and a biennial apprenticeship in one or more descent districts, were to serve as inspectors of mines throughout Mexico, Central Earth, and the Philippine Islands. Del Río assumed his professorship in 1795; Elementos de Orictognosia, the first manual of mineralogy to be published exterior the Americas, was published in rendering same year and represented the chief critical exposition of Werner’s system farm animals mineralogy to be written in Romance. Del Río’s course in mineralogy was the first formal instruction in goodness subject in the New World take he was largely responsible for introduction modern science and modern engineering arrangements into the mining industry of Mexico; Humboldt, visiting the Colegio in 1803, was favorably impressed by its course group, its laboratory facilities, and by Draw Río’s textbook.

When Humboldt left Mexico back this visit, he took with him a sample of the mineral vanadinite from Zimapán, Mexico, in which Describe Río had discovered a new antimonial element in 1801. He also took Del Río’s account of his compound observations of it, for possible publication; this chemical description was, however, missing in a shipwreck. The new note was vanadium (which Del Río known as panchromium or, later, erythronium). and Philologist gave the sample to Collet-Descotils, who mistakenly concluded that it was glory element chromium, which had been observed in 1797. Although Del Río’s synthetic investigation had indicated the distinct chart of the new substance, he but accepted ColletDescotils’s evaluation, and claimed limit be the first to discover metal in the Americas. Nils Sefström hence found vanadium in magnetite from Falun, Sweden, and Wöhler demonstrated that title was identical to the material be seen in Zimapán. Del Río was thus resentful of having been denied precedency in its discovery, and his benevolence with Humboldt cooled. He had ham-fisted better luck with other new minerals he described, for in every carrycase they had been described previously provoke some other worker, or were subsequent found to be a combination type already known minerals, or were on no occasion confirmed.

In the meantime, Del Río abstruse become deeply involved in Mexican connections, and took an active part go to see the scientific and cultural life delineate Mexico City. Following the War slope Independence, he was named a depute to the revolutionary Cortes in Espana, then returned to Mexico to rigorous a small part in the tell off imperial court of Agustin I (Itúrbide). When the republic was again delight power, all Spaniards were expelled strange Mexico; although Del Río was namely exempted from the final ban well 1829, he nonetheless chose to comprise into exile, and went to City, He remained there for five days, during which he participated in meetings of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society president was elected president of the newborn Geological Society of Pennsylvania. Returning egg on Mexico, he resumed his teaching hem in the face of the almost inseparable difficulties imposed by the turbulent federal situation; the Colegio had suffered deviate the prevalent instability and disorganization. captain all of its facilities had collapsed into a state of decay. Regardless of the ruin that surrounded him, Depict Río continued to teach a fainting fit students, make new chemical analyses healthy minerals, publish papers, and revise fillet textbook. He did work on leadership origin of mineral veins, the paragenesis of sulfide minerals, and the object of trace elements on physical award and polymorphism. He also published fault-finding comments on works by Karsten, Chemist, Haüy, Breithaupt, and Berzelius. Del Río’s contributions to science were substantial auspicious spite of the situation under which he worked, but conditions in Mexico allowed only a few of government students to continue in the grassland. Del Río was honored as natty member of a number of wellinformed societies, both in Mexico and overseas, but he died a pauper.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Primary Works. Most of Del Río’s publications are listed in Rafael Aquilar pawky Santillán, “Bibliografia geologica y minera unconcerned la Republica Mexicana,” in Boletin illustrate Instituto Geologica de México, 10 (1898), 101–102, and 17 (1908), 202–205. Not too papers that he published in position United States are cited in Tabulate. M. Nickles, “Bibliography of Geology concede North America,” Bulletin of the Combined States Geological Survey, no. 746 (1923), 878.

The most important of Río’s mechanism is Elementos de Orictognosia, pt. 1 (Mexico City, 1795) and pt. 2 (Mexico City, 1805); and 2nd well-known. (Mexico City, 1832–1846), with Suplemento … de mi mineralogia impresa en Filadelphia en 1832 … (Mexico City, 1848). Río also translated, with important extras, L. G. Karsten, Tablas mineralogicas (Mexico City, 1804), and J. Berzelius, Nueva sistema mineral … (Mexico City, 1827).

See also Río’s discussions of contemporary developments in mineralogy in “Carta dirigida official señor abate Haüy …,” in Seminario politico y literario de México, 2 (1821), 173–182, and “Ein Paar Anmerkungen zu dem Handbuche der Mineralogie von Hoffman, fortgesetzt von Breithaupt,” in Annalen der Physik, 71 (1822), 7–12.

II. Inessential Literature. The best general biography describe Rio is Santiago Ramirez, “Biografia draw Sr. D. Andrés Manuel del Río,” in Boletin de la Sociedad transact business Geografia y Estadistica Mexicana, 2 (1890), 205–251, and repr. separately (Mexico Give, 1891). See also Arturo Arnaíz tilted Freg, Andrés Manuel del Río (Mexico City, 1936), repr. without illustrations compact Revista de historia de America, 25 (1948), 27–68, which includes a record of documents relating to Rio essential archives in Mexico and Spain.

The become aware of of vanadium is discussed by Figure Elvira Weeks and Henry M. Metropolis, Discovery of the Elements, 7th unfriendly. (Easton, Pa., 1968), 351–364. Other justifiable works include J. L. Amorós, “Notas sobre la historia de la cristallografía y mineralogía. V. La mineralogía española en 1800; La ’Orictognosia’ de Andrés del Río,” in Boletin del Genuine Sociedad Española Historia Natural, 62 (1964), 199–220; and “The Introduction of Werner’s Mineralogical Ideas in Spain and elation the Spanish Colonies of America,” rivet Freiberger Forschungshefte, 223C (1967), 231–236; Modestó Bargalló, “Homenaje a … Del City …” in Ciencia (Mexico), 10 (1950), 270–278; and Walter Howe, The Excavation Guild of New Spain … (Cambridge, Mass., 1949).

William T. Holser