IT is the common practice of all American chemists and mineralogists to speak of the met[tl which is called Niobi-ttm by English and continental chemists, as Columbium. This is eminently just, since the metal was discovered and well denned, and named columbium, forty-five years before the name niobium was given to it. The change of name was caused by a double mistake, in no way connected with the original observations in 1801 by Prof. Hatchett of England. These mistakes arose as follows :-1n

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... :first place, Eke· berg discovered in 1802 a supposed new metal which he called tantalum, but which a short time afterward was regarded as identical with columbium; and for forty-:five years tantalum and columbium were synonymous terms in all works on chemistry, although Wollaston suspected their dissimilarity; secondly, when H. Rose made hiE' well-known exhaustive researches on the columbite of Bodenmais, he showed that this