William Cruickshank (chemist)

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

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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).