1000 BCE: Bismuth - The book of science

Bismuth
Atomic number 83
Too soon
Work in progress
Commentary

Egypt, Greece, Rome, China, France elements

Bismuth

Some confusion
remains regarding
the confusion
of bismuth
with lead, tin,
antimony, and zinc
in ancient times.
We believe
the Egyptians
used it as
a cosmetic.
Bismuth is one
of the sixteen
elements known
to alchemists
and we don’t
know what they
thought of it.
It’s hard
to find mention
of it elsewhere
and of course
they didn’t
call it bismuth.
Early Europeans
mined it for use
in pigments.
Bismuth vanadate
is a bright
yellow pigment.
Today bismuth
oxychloride is in
pearlescent
cosmetics, and
bismuth subsalicylate
in Pepto-Bismol^®
and Kaopectate^®.

Atomic number 83

Bismuth was known by alchemists and metallurgists
before the first millennium.
Paracelsus described bismuth and zinc
and gave zinc its name in 1526.
Georgius Agricola described bismuth
in De Natura Fossilium in 1548.
Johann Heinrich Pott, Carl Wilhelm Scheele,
and Torbern Olof Bergman worked on the problem.
Claude François Geoffroy, in 1753,
was the first to prove it was a separate element.

Too soon

At the bismuth mines
near the town of Schneeberg
in Erzgebirgskreis (the mountainous
ore district in Saxony),
miners around 1477
were familiar with ores
for silver and three kinds
of lead—ordinary lead,
“white lead,” that is, tin,
and tectum argenti,
or “silver being made,”
that is, bismuth.
The alchemists taught
the transmutation of elements,
that all metals tended
toward gold, the ideal, so that
these three metals were
tending toward silver
in that order—lead,
tin, bismuth, then silver.
Consequently, when
finding a vein of bismuth,
the miners would sadly
shake their heads and say,
“Alas, we have come too soon.”

Work in progress

It’s ancient, but still
a work in progress.
Many are patient;
others impatient patients.
One can only try.
Past behavior
is not indicative
of future performance
but no one’s waiting
for the end.
I’m evolving
as fast as I can.
In the meantime,
in between time,
I could use
a bit of luck.

The alchemists identified magnesium, phosphorus, sulfur, potassium, iron, copper, zinc, arsenic, silver, tin, antimony, platinum, gold, mercury, lead, and bismuth. Only a hundred or more elements were left.