Fausto Delhuyar

Fausto Fermín de Elhuyar, Fausto Fermín Delhuyar or Fausto Fermín D'Elhuyar and De Lubice (Logroño, October 11, 1755 – Madrid, February 6, 1833) was a Spanish chemist and mining engineer, discoverer of tungsten with his brother Juan José Elhuyar in 1783. He was also in charge of the Royal Mining Seminary from Mexico City and was responsible for the construction of the Palacio de Minería. Elhuyar left New Spain just after independence.

Biography

The D'Elhuyar in Logroño

The Elhuyar Lubice were a Basque-French family that settled in Logroño. The father, Juan d'Elhuyar Surret, was born in Hasparren, Labort, France (1718) and was a "Latin surgeon". In 1752, he practiced his profession in Bilbao and from February 3, 1753, in Logroño until his death.

He had three children: Juan José (June 15, 1754), Fausto (October 11, 1755) and María Lorenza (August 8, 1757). His first wife and mother of his children, Úrsula de Lubice, died in 1758 and Juan married his second wife in 1769 with his servant, Dominique de Elizagaray.

Juan, fond of chemistry, completes his salary as a surgeon with the distillation of "wine spirits and not feces" that he distributes throughout the northern part of Spain. He was the first to distill wines in Logroño to obtain brandy: he had more than 20 stills for distillation in La Rioja. He dies on August 16, 1784 in Bayonne, France.

Academic training

Fausto Elhuyar studied medicine, surgery and chemistry, as well as mathematics, physics and natural history together with his brother Juan José in Paris between 1773 and 1777. He taught in Vergara from 1781 to 1785 as professor of Mineralogy and Metallurgy. His work focused on two distinct areas: teaching and publishing and work at the Laboratorium Chemicum .

He taught mineralogy, underground sciences and metallurgy, as well as the complementary subjects of underground geometry, chemical docimassia and technical and technological drawing. In the laboratory, he worked in association with François Chavaneau, professor of Chemistry at Vergara who achieved the purification and malleability of platinum, alone, and for a few months, in the fall of 1783, with his brother Juan José, who ended up isolating the tungsten or tungsten.

Statue of Fausto Delhuyar at the entrance to the former Faculty of Medicine and Sciences of Zaragoza.

Then, again with his brother, he visited several European universities, including the Mining School in Freiberg where he attended lessons in underground geometry and drawing, those of mining, machine building and metallurgy and the University of Uppsala in Sweden, where he studied higher chemistry with Torbern Olof Bergman for six months. In Köping, he visited Carl Wilhelm Scheele, who announced the possible existence of the metal discovered by Elhuyar.In Vienna, he met the historian Isidoro Bosarte, who was there as secretary to Ambassador Conde de Aguilar; he praisedly quotes it in the correspondence he maintained with José de Viera y Clavijo.

In the spring of 1783, he ran out of pensioner help.

Mining stage

In September 1785, he resigned from his professorship and, in July 1786, he was appointed General Director of Mining in New Spain. Before leaving, he toured Europe between 1786 and 1788 to learn about the Born method for processing silver and he married Juana Raab in Vienna in 1787. During the thirty-three years of his American stay, he was in charge of the creation of the Mining College (January 1, 1792), the construction of the Mining Palace (1813) and their management, as well as visiting the Royal of mines. In 1788, he was called as supervisor of the mining industry in New Spain until the revolution, at the beginning of the XIX century.

After the independence of Mexico, he returned to Madrid in 1821, where he acted as General Director of Mines from August 5, 1822. On September 14 of the same year, he was asked to report on the mines of Almadén, Guadalcanal and Riotinto, which he came to inspect. He also came to visit the Tharsis mines. Two years later, on April 6, 1824, he was appointed to the Board of Promotion of the Kingdom's wealth, to which the Mining Law of 1825 is due.

He died in Madrid on February 6, 1833.

Works and publications

Fausto Elhuyar's works were numerous (in the form of articles, reports, letters, etc.) and included topics on chemistry, mineralogy and metallurgy. He wrote reports on the theory of amalgamation—a process for extracting silver from its ore—, wrote on the history of coin-making mints, and authored on the history of New Spain mines and the exploitation of Spanish mines.. His published works include:

• Chemical analysis of wolfram, and examination of a new metal, entering its composition, Extracts from the General Boards held by the Royal Bascongada Society of Friends of the Country, 1783, pp. 46-88, written in collaboration with Juan José de Elhuyar.

• Théorie d'Amalgamation, Berbaunkunde 1, pp. 238-263, 1789.

• Inquiries about the ammation in New Spain: system observed since its establishment, its current state and products and aid that by this branch mining can be promised for its restoration, presented on August 10, 1814 to the Royal Mexican General Mining Court, by its director Fausto de Elhuyar, Madrid: Imprenta de la Calle de la Greda, 1818, 142 p.

• Memory on the influx of mining in the agriculture, industry, population and civilization of the New-Spain at its different times, with several distributions related to points of public economy related to the branch itself, Madrid: Amarita Print, 1825, 154 p.

• Metallurgical presentations, Bulletin of the Geological and Mining Institute of Spain 45, pp. 439-572, 1941.