GLUCINUM, or Beryllium (Greek γλυκυς, sweet, from the taste of its salts), is a metal related most nearly in its physical properties to zinc and mercury, symbol G, atomic weight 9 - 3. It occurs in the beryl and emerald, G 3 Al 2 Si 6 O 18 , or 3GO,Al 2 O 3 ,6SiO 2 (see vol. iii. p. 613, and vol. viii. p. 170), from which its oxide was earliest obtained by Vauquelin in 1798; also in the minerals euclase (H 2 G 2 Al 2 Si 2 O 10 , or H 2 O,2GO,Al 2 O 3 ,2SiO 2 ), phenacite (G 2 Si(5 4 ) 1 chrysoberyl (GO, A1 2 O 3 ), gadolinite, leucophanite, and helvite. Glucinum was first obtained by Wöhler and Bussy in 1828, in an impure pulverulent form, by the fusion of its chloride with potassium; and by Debray in 1854, in the compact state, by the decomposition in an atmosphere of hydrogen of the vapour of the chloride by that of sodium (Ann. Chirn. Phys., ser. iii. vol. xliv. 5). Heated in air the metal oxidizes superficially, or, if in a state of fine division, burns with brilliancy. The spark-spectrum of glucinum presents two brilliant blue lines. Glucinum may be estimated in minerals, after removal of their silica, in the insoluble form or as fluoride, by the separation of aluminium mostly as alum, what remains being then thrown down, with iron, by means of warm solution of ammonium carbonate; to the filtrate excess of hydrochloric acid is added; and finally the glucinum is precipitated as hydrate, G(OH) 2 , which is washed, dried, and ignited. An alloy of glucinum with iron has been obtained by Davy and by Stromeyer.
On the chemistry of glucinum see further vol. v. pp. 526-8 and 543; also Watts, Diet, of Chemistry, ii.; W. Crookes, Select Methods in Chemical Analysis, pp. 45, 46, 66; and Roscoe and Schorlemmer, Treatise on Chemistry, ii. pt. 1, pp. 231-6.
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