Apollos Musin-Pushkin

Born Feb. 17 (28), 1760; died Apr. 18 (30), 1805, in Georgia. Russian count, chemist, mineralogist, and statesman. Vice-president of the Berg Kollegiia; honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg (1796).

In 1797, Musin-Pushkin was the first to derive magnesium, barium, and sodium chloroplatinates. He proposed a method for obtaining malleable platinum which involved treating ammonium chloroplatinate with mercury, extracting the resulting platinum amalgam, then calcinating this amalgam. He also studied platinum sulfide, platinum-copper alloys, and platinum-silver alloys. Musin-Pushkin discovered chrome alum (1800) and made sodium tungstate. He organized a planned study of the mineral resources of the Caucasus and Transcaucasus (he headed a Transcaucasian expedition from 1799 to 1805). Musin-Pushkin was a member of several foreign academies.