William Cruickshank (chemist)

(? - 1810 or 1811), professor of chemistry at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich.

Additional recommended knowledge

Recognize and detect the effects of electrostatic charges on your balance

Daily Visual Balance Check

Essential Laboratory Skills Guide

Some authors credit Cruikshank with first suspecting an unknown substance in a Scottish mineral, strontianate, found near Strontian, in Argyleshire. Other authors name Adair Crawford for the discovery of this new earth due to the mineral's property of imparting a redding color to a flame^[1]. It was later isolated by Humphry Davy and is now known as strontium.

In 1802, Cruikshank improved the construction of Alessandro Volta's voltaic pile, by arranging the plates horizontally in a trough rather than vertically in a column. ^[2]

References

1. ^ A Handbook to a Collection of the Minerals of the British Islands... by Frederick William Rudler publ. HMSO (1905) page 211(available digitized by Google)
2. ^ Electricity by Robert M Ferguson, publ. Chambers (1873) page 169 (available digitized by Google).