Minerals Scrutinized: Alberto Betim Paes Leme (1883-1938) and the Application of Spectrography1

Abstract

Alberto Betim Paes Leme (1883–1938) was born in Rio de Janeiro, and graduated in Mining Engineering from the Ecole des Mines de Paris, in 1906, as did many of his countrymen throughout the 19th century. Soon afterwards, he returned to Brazil and worked in various public institutions, including the Brazilian Geological and Mineralogical Survey, and the National Museum, which was to become the University of Rio de Janeiro. In 1916 he was one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. His international connections, in particular with France through the Académie des Sciences and the Société Géologique, made him known and cited abroad, especially in France. Despite the wide range of geological topics he addressed, his seminal contribution was in the field of quantitative analysis of minerals using spectrography. He published various articles, which included: ‘Sur un nouveau procédé d’analyse quantitative’ (1918); ‘Procédé cinématique d’analyse spectrale quantitative’ (1934), and his book Analyse espectral applicada a mineralogia (1918) was reviewed in The American Mineralogist (1920). This paper focuses on the use of this technique and on the discussion of his methods and results.