Leó Kristjánsson
Annotated reference list on Iceland spar and polarized light

 

My research on the Iceland spar quarry at Helgustadir, E-Iceland, and its influence on the development of the natural sciences (mostly in the 19th century) has been ongoing part-time since 1995. In August 2001 I published a report in Icelandic on the matter through the Science Institute, University of Iceland. The appended list of references is a translation of that in a new and greatly expanded edition of the report which is being prepared in August 2007. Papers based on material from the report have been published in the Icelandic journals Jökull (July 2001), Glettingur (no. 2, 2002) and Verpill (2007), as well as in Journal of Geoscience Education (Sept. 2002) and Matrix (Dec. 2003) in the U.S. The list represents only a small fraction of the papers and books which I have consulted and obtained copies of; these in turn are only a very small fraction of all the relevant publications.

At the end of the list there are some sentences taken from various sources, regarding a shortage of Iceland spar which seems to have prevailed from the early 1880´s. There are also some paragraphs describing connections of various Nobel prize winners to research involving Iceland spar and Nicol prisms.

                                                                                   
 Leó Kristjánsson (leo@raunvis.hi.is)

 

Various statements regarding the origin of optical calcite, esp. shortage, after 1880:
A letter from Professor G.G. Stokes regarding Iceland spar shortage
National Archives of Iceland) :

Lensfield Cottage, Cambridge, 6 July, 1886.

To his Excellency, the Minister for Iceland, Copenhagen.

Sir,

  As I hold the office of president of the Royal Society of London, the oldest scientific society in this Kingdom, I hope your Excellency will excuse me for troubling you on a matter of scientific importance, possibly also of some slight commercial interest to your country.

  This mineral known as calcite is much used by scientific men for instruments employed in investigations and lectures relating to polarised light. This mineral is common enough: but it has nowhere, to my knowledge, been found in large, clear, regularly crystallized masses except in Iceland, from which circumstance it is otherwise called Iceland spar. It is from Iceland that the supply of this material used by opticians has been exclusively derived.

  Some years ago large blocks of this material used to be imported into this country from Iceland, and were freely purchased, and used by opticians. But for some time the supply has altogether ceased: the stock in hand has been used up, and opticians try in vain to get more. I feared that the mines were exhausted, but I am informed that the cause of the cessation of the supply is that the mines were purchased by Government and have not since been worked.

  I imagine that they have been worked in a rather wasteful way, for the sake of quick returns, and probably at the time of the purchase there was a glut in the market: for though there is a steady demand for the material it is not used in large quantities, and the consumption is slow. But I hear on all sides from opticians and scientific men of the impossibility of procuring the material now, so there can be no doubt that there would be a demand for it if it could be supplied.

  The magnificence of the blocks I used to see some years ago leads me to suspect that among the heaps of rubbish about the mine there may be many small pieces which were not thought worth collecting, nor were they perhaps when the market was glutted. But when I mention that a piece an inch or an inch and a half long and say three eighths of an inch in diameter would suffice to make a prism which when made could be sold for perhaps 8 shillings, even when there was still spar to be had in the market, it will be seen that even small pieces, comparatively speaking, have their value: and the collection of these, if such there be lying about, might help to defray the cost of re-opening the mine.

  I enclose a translation of this letter into Icelandic, which my friend Mr. Magnússon has kindly undertaken to make.

  I have the honour of being your Excellency´s obedient servant
             G.G. Stokes (sign.)
Connections between Iceland spar and Nobel prizes 1901-30 may be divided into four categories:
1. Discoveries dependent on Nicol prisms to a large extent:
Emil Fischer, Chem. 1902 (synthesis of sugars and other molecules)
Alfred Werner, Chem. 1913 (coordination compounds; see Kauffman 1968)
2. Discoveries where polarization played a considerable part:

H.A. Lorentz and P. Zeeman, Phys. 1902 (Zeeman magneto-optic effect)
J. Stark, Phys. 1919 (Stark electro-optic effect on spectra)
C.V. Raman, Phys. 1930 (scattering of light, with change of wavelength).
3. Discoveries where Nicol prisms or calcite crystals played some part:
The X-ray diffraction studies of the Braggs, Phys. 1915, M. Siegbahn, Phys. 1924, and A.H. Compton, Phys. 1927. W. Ostwald, Chem. 1909, used a polarimeter in some of his studies on reaction kinetics. O. Wallach, Chem. 1910, was awarded the prize for his work on so-called terpene and camphor compounds from plants, including optical activity measurements. The work of R.A. Zsigmondy, Chem. 1925, on colloids included studies on polarization, e.g. by Siedentopf and Zsigmondy (1903), and this in turn inspired the work by J.B. Perrin, Phys. 1926, on the structure of matter. Various Nobel prizes in Chemistry honour discoveries which relied to some extent on results from others employing polarimeters, polarization photometers etc., such as those of A. v. Baeyer 1905, E. Buchner 1907, R. Willstätter 1915, H.O. Wieland 1928, A. Windaus 1928, and later W.N. Haworth 1937.
4. Nobel prize winners who published papers on work involving polarized light or calcite, but received their prizes for discoveries in different fields:
Prominent among these are W.C. Röntgen, Phys. 1901; H. Becquerel, Phys. 1903; Rayleigh, Phys. 1904; J.J. Thomson, Phys. 1906; A.A. Michelson, Phys. 1907; R.A. Millikan, Phys. 1923.

Further: M. Born who received the Physics prize in 1954 wrote important papers and books on crystal optics, the Kerr effect, and optical activity (e.g. Born 1915, 1935). J.H. van't Hoff, Chem. 1901, put organic chemistry on a new foundation by his suggestion (Hoff, 1874) that optical activity of asymmetric carbon-containing molecules is due to three-dimensional bonds. W. Ostwald, Chem. 1909, used the interference of polarized light in his influential studies on color perception. W. Nernst, Chem. 1920, wrote a well-known paper with P. Drude on the polarization of standing light waves. Both N. Bohr, Phys. 1922 and W. Heisenberg, Phys. 1932, wrote on polarized luminescence. O. Warburg, Physiology or Medicine 1931, began his scientific career with research on optically active organic compounds with E. Fischer. P. Karrer, Chem. 1937, did his doctoral research on cobalt complexes with A. Werner. H. Kamerlingh Onnes, Phys. 1913, was involved in research by J. Becquerel on one aspect of the Zeeman effect.
October 2007