Element:"Tin"and a bit of its description

Tin is a silvery-gray metal with a density of 7.27 g/cm³. The name is derived from the Anglo-Saxon tin, the symbol Sn from  the Latin stannum, meaning tin.

Bronze, which is an alloy of copper and tin, was decisive in human history, already 2000 years before the start of the Iron Age. The Colossus of Rhodes, a bronze statue one hundred feet high, which was destroyed by an earthquake in 224 B.C., was one of the “seven wonders of the world”.

From ancient Egypt to the Middle Ages, kitchen utensils made of tin were commonly used. Bronze and pure tin were also found in the Inca-city Machu Picchu in Peru.

When bending a tin bar, one hears a sound called “tin cry”. As in the case of cadmium, this “cry” is produced by the friction of the internal crystal faces with each other. Tin is used in organ pipes, rendering a particularly clear sound. To produce flat glass, liquid glass is allowed to float on liquid tin and, since glass solidifies first, it can be removed from the molten tin.

At low temperatures, tin breaks down into powder, which has had a dramatic impact in cold winters: the destruction of military uniform buttons, for example, in Napoleon’s troops, during the Russian campaign, as well as of pipe organs, for example, in the Maarja-Magdalena church in Estonia in 1890.

It also affected polar expeditions, including that of Robert Falcon Scott’s effort to reach the south Pole in 1912, where the tin-containing welds of tanks carrying fuel became dust, leaving them empty. One speaks of “tin pest” since the break-up is accelerated by contact with objects already destroyed in this way.

Bolivia was a major producer of tin in the twentieth century. Its production mainly enriched an elite of tycoons (three families, in fact), while workers were kept “happy” with coca leaves. This deplorable situation went on until the collapse of the tin market in 1980.