gsminmag Mineralogical Magazine Mineralogical Magazine 0026-461X Mineralogical Society 10.1180/minmag.1972.038.297.02 Jacob Forster (1739–1806) and His Connections with Forsterite and Palladium Frondel Clifford Department of Geological Sciences, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass. 02138 3 1972 38 297 545 550 25 8 1970 Copyright © 1972, The Mineralogical Society 1972 Summary

The person after whom forsterite was named has been confirmed as Jacob Forster (1739–1806), a mineral collector and dealer of London. The discovery of palladium and rhodium by William Hyde Wollaston and of iridium and osmium by Smithson Tennant appears to have been made on crude platinum ore from South America supplied by Forster.