[DL] Price of Aluminum (Aluminium to some)?

["Derek D. Bass" <wangenstein@mad.scientist.com>]

Odd question, I know, but I need to know what the price of aluminum was in
the late 1870s. Here's what I know now:

1854: Henri Sainte-Claire Deville (France) improved Wohler's method to
create the first commercial process. The metal was more expensive than gold
or platinum.

1855: A bar of aluminium, the new precious metal, was exhibited at the Paris
Exhibition.

1885: Hamilton Y. Cassner (USA) improved on Deville's process. Annual output
15 tonnes!

1886: Two unknown young scientists, Paul Louis Toussaint Héroult (France)
and Charles Martin Hall (USA), working separately and unaware of each
other's work, simultaneously invented a new electrolytic process, the
Hall-Héroult process, which is the basis for all aluminium production today.
They discovered that if they dissolved aluminium oxide (alumina) in a bath
of molten cryolite and passed a powerful electric current through it, then
molten aluminium would be deposited at the bottom of the bath.

In my wife's Chemistry text, it claimed that, at its height, aluminum cost
$100,000 per pound (perhaps it was ton, I don't have it in front of me).
Then Heroult and Hall came along, and their process caused the price of
aluminum to plummet. Now, I don't expect a Chemistry book to have a firm
grasp of history, so I wonder if that figure is accurate.

Anyone have any idea? Anyone? Bueller?

Derek D. Bass
Etheric Musings - The Science of the Sons of Ether
http://web.cari.net/~ddbass/Ether.htm

_______________
______________________________________________
FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com
Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup