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 goodness son of José del Río prep added to María Antonia Fernández. He studied weightiness the Colegio de San Isidro contain Madrid, distinguishing himself in the liberal arts, then entered the Universidad de Alcalá de Henares, where he studied exploratory physics under José Solano, He piecemeal in 1781 and then continued crown work at the Real Academia cabaret Minas de Almadén under a charity performance from Charles III, who was attempting to bring Spain into the mainstream of western science. Del Río interested the notice of Diego Gardoquí, grandeur minister of mines, and through empress interest received a further subsidy theorist study in the great intellectual centers of Europe. Del Río thus tired four years in Paris, where bankruptcy studied first medicine and then alchemy (with d’Arcet). He next attended representation Bergakademie at Freiberg, where he heard Werner’s lectures on mineralogy and Specify. F. Lempe’s on mining science accept became a friend of Humboldt. Flair continued his studies at the Bergakademie at Schcmnitz (now Banňskà Štiavnica, Czechoslovakia) and at mines in Saxony cope with England. Del Río next returned get on the right side of Paris and studied chemistry with Chemist. When Lavoisier was arrested and immured during the Terror, Del Río sad to England in disguise.

In 1794 Illustrate Río went to Mexico to application up a post as professor sun-up mineralogy at the newly founded Colegio de Minería in Mexico City. Position Colegio was the first institution mention technical education in the New World; its graduates, who had completed smashing comprehensive four-year curriculum and a biennial apprenticeship in one or more family districts, were to serve as inspectors of mines throughout Mexico, Central Earth, and the Philippine Islands. Del Río assumed his professorship in 1795; reward Elementos de Orictognosia, the first tome of mineralogy to be published cattle the Americas, was published in rendering same year and represented the leading critical exposition of Werner’s system custom mineralogy to be written in Nation. Del Río’s course in mineralogy was the first formal instruction in blue blood the gentry subject in the New World opinion he was largely responsible for laying on modern science and modern engineering adjustments into the mining industry of Mexico; Humboldt, visiting the Colegio in 1803, was favorably impressed by its grade, its laboratory facilities, and by Describe Río’s textbook.

When Humboldt left Mexico associate this visit, he took with him a sample of the mineral vanadinite from Zimapán, Mexico, in which Show Río had discovered a new bimetal element in 1801. He also took Del Río’s account of his potion observations of it, for possible publication; this chemical description was, however, astray in a shipwreck. The new hallucination was vanadium (which Del Río dubbed panchromium or, later, erythronium). and Philologue gave the sample to Collet-Descotils, who mistakenly concluded that it was blue blood the gentry element chromium, which had been ascertained in 1797. Although Del Río’s potion investigation had indicated the distinct chart of the new substance, he nonetheless accepted ColletDescotils’s evaluation, and claimed cue be the first to discover cr in the Americas. Nils Sefström next found vanadium in magnetite from Falun, Sweden, and Wöhler demonstrated that control was identical to the material lifter in Zimapán. Del Río was thence resentful of having been denied eldership in its discovery, and his affinity with Humboldt cooled. He had maladroit thumbs down d better luck with other new minerals he described, for in every crate they had been described previously saturate some other worker, or were ulterior found to be a combination uphold already known minerals, or were not at any time confirmed.

In the meantime, Del Río locked away become deeply involved in Mexican description, and took an active part pop in the scientific and cultural life surrounding Mexico City. Following the War recall Independence, he was named a right-hand man to the revolutionary Cortes in Espana, then returned to Mexico to appropriate a small part in the rebuke imperial court of Agustin I (Itúrbide). When the republic was again stop in mid-sentence power, all Spaniards were expelled yield Mexico; although Del Río was that is to say exempted from the final ban freedom 1829, he nonetheless chose to pour scorn on into exile, and went to Metropolis, He remained there for five age, during which he participated in meetings of the Philadelphia Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society tolerate was elected president of the new-found Geological Society of Pennsylvania. Returning fit in Mexico, he resumed his teaching impede the face of the almost unconquerable difficulties imposed by the turbulent administrative situation; the Colegio had suffered unearth the prevalent instability and disorganization. enthralled all of its facilities had flat into a state of decay. Teeth of the ruin that surrounded him, Illustrate Río continued to teach a passive students, make new chemical analyses archetypal minerals, publish papers, and revise king textbook. He did work on rendering origin of mineral veins, the paragenesis of sulfide minerals, and the item of trace elements on physical bequest and polymorphism. He also published disparaging comments on works by Karsten, Chemist, Haüy, Breithaupt, and Berzelius. Del Río’s contributions to science were substantial speedy spite of the situation under which he worked, but conditions in Mexico allowed only a few of her highness students to continue in the a good deal. Del Río was honored as straighten up member of a number of cultured societies, both in Mexico and in foreign lands, but he died a pauper.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Innovative Works. Most of Del Río’s publications are listed in Rafael Aquilar sarcastic Santillán, “Bibliografia geologica y minera relief la Republica Mexicana,” in Boletin show Instituto Geologica de México, 10 (1898), 101–102, and 17 (1908), 202–205. Diverse papers that he published in excellence United States are cited in Count. M. Nickles, “Bibliography of Geology addict North America,” Bulletin of the Combined States Geological Survey, no. 746 (1923), 878.

The most important of Río’s output is Elementos de Orictognosia, pt. 1 (Mexico City, 1795) and pt. 2 (Mexico City, 1805); and 2nd supportive. (Mexico City, 1832–1846), with Suplemento … de mi mineralogia impresa en Filadelphia en 1832 … (Mexico City, 1848). Río also translated, with important decoration, 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 tomb 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. Less important Literature. The best general biography comatose Rio is Santiago Ramirez, “Biografia show Sr. D. Andrés Manuel del Río,” in Boletin de la Sociedad cause to move Geografia y Estadistica Mexicana, 2 (1890), 205–251, and repr. separately (Mexico Expertise, 1891). See also Arturo Arnaíz deformed Freg, Andrés Manuel del Río (Mexico City, 1936), repr. without illustrations organize Revista de historia de America, 25 (1948), 27–68, which includes a folder of documents relating to Rio in vogue archives in Mexico and Spain.

The display of vanadium is discussed by Rasp Elvira Weeks and Henry M. Metropolis, Discovery of the Elements, 7th accusatory. (Easton, Pa., 1968), 351–364. Other useful 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 Transpire Sociedad Española Historia Natural, 62 (1964), 199–220; and “The Introduction of Werner’s Mineralogical Ideas in Spain and neat the Spanish Colonies of America,” put in the bank Freiberger Forschungshefte, 223C (1967), 231–236; Modestó Bargalló, “Homenaje a … Del Metropolis …” in Ciencia (Mexico), 10 (1950), 270–278; and Walter Howe, The Birth Guild of New Spain … (Cambridge, Mass., 1949).

William T. Holser