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Charles James (27 April 1880 – 10 December 1928) was a chemist of British origin working in the United States. He became a professor and head of the chemistry department at the New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts (now the
University of New Hampshire The University of New Hampshire (UNH) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Durham, New Hampshire. It was founded and incorporated in 1866 as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College, mo ...
) in
Durham, New Hampshire Durham is a town in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 15,490 at the 2020 census, up from 14,638 at the 2010 census.United States Census BureauU.S. Census website 2010 Census figures. Retrieved March 23, 2011. D ...
, US. James developed the James method for the separation and identification of
rare-earth element The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides or sometimes the lanthanides (yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silve ...
s by fractional
precipitation In meteorology, precipitation is any product of the condensation of atmospheric water vapor that falls under gravitational pull from clouds. The main forms of precipitation include drizzle, rain, sleet, snow, ice pellets, graupel and hail. ...
and
crystallization Crystallization is the process by which solid forms, where the atoms or molecules are highly organized into a structure known as a crystal. Some ways by which crystals form are precipitating from a solution, freezing, or more rarely deposi ...
, and provided extracted elements to researchers worldwide. James was one of the first scientists to identify element 71, later named
lutetium Lutetium is a chemical element with the symbol Lu and atomic number 71. It is a silvery white metal, which resists corrosion in dry air, but not in moist air. Lutetium is the last element in the lanthanide series, and it is traditionally counted am ...
, and believed that he had found the final rare earth element 61, later named
promethium Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. All of its isotopes are radioactive; it is extremely rare, with only about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. Promethium is one of onl ...
. In 1999 the
American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
recognized Charles James's work in chemical separations as a
National Historic Chemical Landmark The National Historic Chemical Landmarks program was launched by the American Chemical Society in 1992 to recognize significant achievements in the history of chemistry and related professions. The program celebrates the The central science, cent ...
.


Early life

Charles James was born on 27 April 1880 to William James and Mary Diana Shatford-James at
Earls Barton Earls Barton is a village and civil parish in Northamptonshire, notable for its Anglo-Saxon church and shoe-making heritage. The village is in North Northamptonshire and was previously in the Borough of Wellingborough until 2021. At the time of t ...
near
Broughton, Northamptonshire Broughton is a large village and civil parish in North Northamptonshire, England. The village is around south-west of Kettering and is bypassed by the A43 road. At the 2011 census, the population of the parish was 2,208. The village's name is ...
. His father died when he was six and he was brought up by his mother. He attended school in Wellinborough, taking classes through
Cambridge University , mottoeng = Literal: From here, light and sacred draughts. Non literal: From this place, we gain enlightenment and precious knowledge. , established = , other_name = The Chancellor, Masters and Schola ...
. His father's chemistry books sparked his interest in chemistry, and he built himself a home laboratory when he was 15. He also began a correspondence with renowned chemist
William Ramsay Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous element ...
, who encouraged his interest and became a life-long mentor to James. Oxford and Cambridge did not teach chemistry at that time. His family opposed his choice of chemistry as a career, but finally gave way. In 1899, James went to
University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...
where he studied under
William Ramsay Sir William Ramsay (; 2 October 1852 – 23 July 1916) was a Scottish chemist who discovered the noble gases and received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1904 "in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous element ...
. James won the Ramsay silver medal in 1901. He passed examinations to become an associate of the
Institute of Chemistry The Royal Institute of Chemistry was a British scientific organisation. Founded in 1877 as the Institute of Chemistry of Great Britain and Ireland (ICGBI), its role was to focus on qualifications and the professional status of chemists, and its aim ...
in 1904, and a fellow in 1907.


Career

In 1906, James accepted a position at the National Refining Company in West Chester, New York. Once in the United States, he was offered an assistant professorship in chemistry by Charles Parsons, at
New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts New Hampshire College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts (NHC) was founded and incorporated in 1866, as a land grant college in Hanover in connection with Dartmouth College. In 1893, NHC moved to Durham, where it became the University of New Ha ...
in
Durham, New Hampshire Durham is a town in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 15,490 at the 2020 census, up from 14,638 at the 2010 census.United States Census BureauU.S. Census website 2010 Census figures. Retrieved March 23, 2011. D ...
. Founded in 1866 by chemist
Ezekiel Dimond Ezekiel (; he, יְחֶזְקֵאל ''Yəḥezqēʾl'' ; in the Septuagint written in grc-koi, Ἰεζεκιήλ ) is the central protagonist of the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible. In Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, Ezekiel is acknow ...
, the school's main focus was chemistry. Parsons was a founder of the national
American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
, and Parsons and James were founding members of a national chemistry fraternity:
Alpha Chi Sigma Alpha Chi Sigma () is a professional fraternity specializing in the fields of the chemical sciences. It has both collegiate and professional chapters throughout the United States consisting of both men and women and numbering more than 70,000 mem ...
. In 1911, Parsons moved to the
U.S. Bureau of Mines For most of the 20th century, the United States Bureau of Mines (USBM) was the primary Federal government of the United States, United States government agency conducting scientific research and disseminating information on the extraction, proce ...
. James became a full professor and succeeded Parsons as head of the chemistry department at New Hampshire College.


Research

James was interested in the group of elements called the
rare earths The rare-earth elements (REE), also called the rare-earth metals or (in context) rare-earth oxides or sometimes the lanthanides (yttrium and scandium are usually included as rare earths), are a set of 17 nearly-indistinguishable lustrous silve ...
, particularly the
lanthanides The lanthanide () or lanthanoid () series of chemical elements comprises the 15 metallic chemical elements with atomic numbers 57–71, from lanthanum through lutetium. These elements, along with the chemically similar elements scandium and ytt ...
. He published more than 60 papers in the ''
Journal of the American Chemical Society The ''Journal of the American Chemical Society'' is a weekly peer-reviewed scientific journal that was established in 1879 by the American Chemical Society. The journal has absorbed two other publications in its history, the ''Journal of Analytical ...
''.


The James Method

He developed specialized techniques for the fractional precipitation and crystallization of the rare earths. The James Method, using bromates and double magnesium nitrates in fractional crystallization was widely used until the 1940s when
Ion Exchange Ion exchange is a reversible interchange of one kind of ion present in an insoluble solid with another of like charge present in a solution surrounding the solid with the reaction being used especially for softening or making water demineralised, ...
methods were developed. James himself became the major producer of extracted rare earth materials, supplying elements and compounds to researchers worldwide. His collection of rare earths was sold to the
National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sci ...
after his death. It has since been returned to the University of New Hampshire, where it is the James Collection of Rare Earth Compounds, in the Department of Chemistry.


Lutetium

During 1906-1907, James prepared a substantial amount of highly purified
lutetia The Gallo-Roman town of ''Lutetia'' (''Lutetia Parisiorum'' in Latin, in French ''Lutèce'') was the predecessor of the modern-day city of Paris. It was founded in about the middle of the 3rd century BCE by the Parisii, a Gallic tribe. Trac ...
, identifying it as a rare earth element that had not previously been extracted. Because he did not publish his results immediately, two other chemists published their own methods and results for the extraction of the new element before him:
Georges Urbain Georges Urbain (12 April 1872 – 5 November 1938) was a French chemist, a professor of the Sorbonne, a member of the Institut de France, and director of the Institute of Chemistry in Paris. Much of his work focused on the rare earths, isolating and ...
and
Carl Auer von Welsbach Carl Auer von Welsbach (1 September 1858 – 4 August 1929), who received the Austrian noble title of Freiherr Auer von Welsbach in 1901, was an Austrian scientist and inventor, who separated didymium into the elements neodymium and praseo ...
. All three scientists successfully separated ytterbia into the oxides of two elements, which were eventually named
ytterbium Ytterbium is a chemical element with the symbol Yb and atomic number 70. It is a metal, the fourteenth and penultimate element in the lanthanide series, which is the basis of the relative stability of its +2 oxidation state. However, like the othe ...
and
lutetium Lutetium is a chemical element with the symbol Lu and atomic number 71. It is a silvery white metal, which resists corrosion in dry air, but not in moist air. Lutetium is the last element in the lanthanide series, and it is traditionally counted am ...
). None of these chemists were able to isolate pure lutetium, although James' separation was of very high quality.


Promethium

As early as 1913, James was involved in searching for element 61, the last of the rare earth elements. At least seven times, investigators believed that they had identified element 61. Charles James and B. Smith Hopkins from the
University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...
both sought it. In 1926, himself close to publishing on the subject, James was asked to review a paper from Hopkins for the ''Journal of the American Chemical Society''. James subsequently sent his own paper on element 61 to the lesser-known ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences'' to avoid any possible
conflict of interest A conflict of interest (COI) is a situation in which a person or organization is involved in multiple interests, financial or otherwise, and serving one interest could involve working against another. Typically, this relates to situations i ...
. As a result it received less attention than might have been expected. It is likely that neither chemist was aware of the other's work before James reviewed Hopkins' paper. James also reviewed Hopkinsʼs book ''Chemistry of the Rarer Elements'', saying he recommended it. Eventually it was determined that
promethium Promethium is a chemical element with the symbol Pm and atomic number 61. All of its isotopes are radioactive; it is extremely rare, with only about 500–600 grams naturally occurring in Earth's crust at any given time. Promethium is one of onl ...
, a radioactive element, does not form stable isotopes. As a result, it is extremely rare and unlikely to occur in nature, but can be formed in a nuclear reactor.


Thulium

James determined that
thulium Thulium is a chemical element with the symbol Tm and atomic number 69. It is the thirteenth and third-last element in the lanthanide series. Like the other lanthanides, the most common oxidation state is +3, seen in its oxide, halides and other c ...
, thought to be a mixture of three substances, was really a single element. James was the first researcher to isolate nearly pure thulium. In 1911 he reported his results, having used the method he discovered for bromate fractional crystallization to do the purification. He famously needed 15,000 purification operations to establish that the material was homogeneous.


Honors

* 1901, Ramsay Silver Medal * 1912, William H. Nichols Medal, New York Section of the American Chemical Society * 1999, Laboratory recognized as a
National Historic Chemical Landmark The National Historic Chemical Landmarks program was launched by the American Chemical Society in 1992 to recognize significant achievements in the history of chemistry and related professions. The program celebrates the The central science, cent ...
by the
American Chemical Society The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry. Founded in 1876 at New York University, the ACS currently has more than 155,000 members at all d ...
* 2000, inducted into the Alpha Chi Sigma Hall of Fame


Personal life

In 1915, James married Marion Templeton. Their only child, Marion James, became a historian of ancient Greece and Rome, and an art collector. In addition to his work, Charles James became an avid gardener, specializing in
delphinium ''Delphinium'' is a genus of about 300 species of annual and perennial flowering plants in the family (biology), family Ranunculaceae, native plant, native throughout the Northern Hemisphere and also on the high mountains of tropical Africa. Th ...
propagation. He also became a
beekeeper A beekeeper is a person who keeps honey bees. Beekeepers are also called honey farmers, apiarists, or less commonly, apiculturists (both from the Latin '' apis'', bee; cf. apiary). The term beekeeper refers to a person who keeps honey bees i ...
, and an expert on the social life of bees.


Death

By 1928, James was terminally ill. He died on 10 December 1928. There is a legend, captured by
John Greenleaf Whittier John Greenleaf Whittier (December 17, 1807 – September 7, 1892) was an American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States. Frequently listed as one of the fireside poets, he was influenced by the Scottish poet ...
in the poem, " Telling the bees," which explains that someone must tell the bees of their master's death or they will fly away. James died in the winter, so he could not be buried in the intended cemetery plot until the spring. He was then buried in the desired plot. A day or two later a swarm of bees appeared at the grave. The bees belonged to Jesse Hepler, who lived two miles away. They had been given to him by James. No one told the James-Hepler bees of James' death, and, as in the legend, they flew away. Miraculously they flew to the grave of their former master, two miles away.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:James, Charles 1880 births 1928 deaths Alumni of University College London Discoverers of chemical elements Rare earth scientists