Elementymology & Elements Multidict

memory peg	Gray-white metal melting point 1474 °C; 2685 °F boiling point 2695 °C; 4883 °F density 8.79 g/cc; 549.05 pounds/cubic foot
1878 Jacques-Louis Soret, France
Holmia = Stockholm (Latin) Named by Per Theodor Cleve, 1879

The story of discovery and naming of the rare earth element Holmium began with Carl Gustav Mosander splitting old yttria into three new elements, yttria proper, erbia, and terbia (see the special Rare Earths page). In 1860 the Swedish chemist Nils Johan Berlin (1812-1891) denied the existence of Mosander’s erbia, and gave this name to his terbia.

In 1878, Jean Charles Galissard de Marignac, professor of Chemistry at the University of Geneva, separated Berlin's erbia into two new earths, erbia and ytterbia (note). Marignac's erbia was the following year split by Cleve into erbia proper and two new elements, which he named Thulium and Holmium (note). (it seemed that Delafontaine's Philippium, found in 1878 in samarskite, was identical with Holmium).

Gadolinite, with Berlin’s erbia, was also spectroscopically examined by Jacques-Louis Soret in 1878. He wrote that Marignac and Delafontaine have found three earths in gadolinite, yttria, erbia, and terbia, the latter being contested, and that it seemed that there was also a fourth earth present, which was still unnamed. Soret indicated the new metal provisionally with terre X (note). In 1880 he accepted Cleve’s name holmia (note).

Holmia was split in 1886 by Lecoq de Boisbaudran into a true holmia and a new oxide dysprosia (note).

After (Stock-)Holmia, the Latin name of Stockholm, since the minerals with yttria were found in the region of Stockholm.

According to other sources it is named after the chemist O. Holmberg. This is erroneous: Holmberg was in 1911 the first who succeeded to prepare pure Holmium.

See also: Chronological list of discovery of the rare earths and their names

Stockholm's location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, and in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne. The earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name (stock) means log in Swedish, although it may also be connected to an old German word (Stock), meaning fortification. The second part of the name (holm) means islet, and is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. The city is said to have been founded by Birger Jarl to protect Sweden from a sea invasion by foreign navies, and to stop the pillage of towns such as Sigtuna on Lake Mälaren (note).

• Mary Elvira Weeks, Discovery of the Elements, comp. rev. by Henry M. Leicester (Easton, Pa.: Journal of Chemical Education, 1968), pp. 667-699.
• Seltene Erden. Gmelins Handbuch der anorganische Chemie, 8. Aufl.; System-Nummer 39 (1938).