Chem. Obs. [f. F. thorine and Eng. THORINA, in accordance with L. names of metals in -um, as aurum, cuprum, plumbum.]
1. The name originally given to a hypothetical metal of which THORINA (sense 1) was (erroneously) supposed by Berzelius, 1815, to be the oxide.
1819. Children, Ess. Chem. Anal., § 76. Oxide of Thorinium, or Thorina.
1820. Ure, Dict. Chem., Thorinum, the supposed metallic basis of the preceding earth [THORINA 1], not hitherto extracted.
1826. Henry, Elem. Chem., I. 635. Thorinum. Nothing is known of the metallic base of this earth [thorina], and it is only from analogy that it is supposed to be constituted of such a base united with oxygen.
2. The name given in France and England, for several years after 1828, to the metallic element THORIUM, q.v.
1836. Brande, Chem. (ed. 4), 847. Thorinum … was discovered by Berzelius in 1828, in a rare and complex mineral, found in the Syenitic rock of the Isle of Lövon, near Brevig, in Norway. It contained about 58 per cent. of thorina. Ibid. By passing a current of dry chlorine over a mixture of thorina and charcoal-powder, a crystalline chloride of thorinum is obtained, which is easily decomposed by potassium, and the product is thorinum. It is of a gray colour, metallic lustre, and apparently malleable.
1873. Watts, Fownes’ Chem. (1877), I. 397. Thorinum forms but one class of compounds, in all of which it is quadrivalent.
