Smithsonite, Where Did That Name Come From?

     Does the name of this mineral sound familiar? Smithsonite and the Smithsonian Institute have very similar names and that is because they were both named for the same person: James Smithson. This happened because the man who donated his estate to what is now the Smithsonian also discovered that the mineral calamine was actually two different minerals: smithsonite and zinc oxide.
     Smithsonite crystals are rhombohedra (that means that they have six diamond-shaped faces). Smithsonite in crystalline form is rare, however, and the mineral is more often found as banded stalactites or in botryoidal form. Like many minerals smithsonite is white or colorless when pure, but impurities can cause it to appear to have different colors. In smithsonite the most common colors are: green, purple, blue, brown, yellow, gray, or pink. Smithsonite is translucent (it allows light to shine through it) and is affected by mild acids.
     Smithsonite contains zinc and was used as a zinc ore until the 1800s. The ancient Romans made brass (an alloy or mixture of copper and zinc) by smelting copper ores and smithsonite together. They did not know that smithsonite contained zinc or even that adding zinc to copper made brass, they just knew that they would get brass by smelting those two rocks together. The metal zinc was not discovered until the mid 1700s when a German chemist by the name of Andreas Sigismund Marggraaf discovered it in, you guessed it, smithsonite. Today smithsonite has few uses outside of collecting as it is a little too soft to use in jewelry and better zinc ores have been found. Smithsonite does serve a limited use as a decorative stone and it can be ground to make fertilizer for agriculture.
     Smithsonite is found in such places as: Italy, Poland, Australia, Brazil, Bolivia, Japan, Zambia, Argentina, Greece, and Morocco.