Group 12 element have zinc in its active site. In 1817, cadmium was discovered in Germany as an impurity in zinc carbonate minerals (calamine) by Friedrich Stromeyer and Karl Samuel Leberecht Hermann. It was named after the Latin "cadmia" for "calamine", a cadmium-bearing mixture of minerals, which was in turn named after the Greek mythological character, Κάδμος Cadmus, the founder of Thebes. Stromeyer eventually isolated cadmium metal by roasting and reduction of the sulfide. In 1927, the International Conference on Weights and Measures redefined the meter in terms of a red cadmium spectral line (1 m = 1,553,164.13 wavelengths). This definition has since
Cupronickel so much more the extraordinary as this sort of copper is found no where but in China and that only in the Province of Yunnan". Notwithstanding what is here said, of the colour of the copper being owing to no mixture, it is certain the Chinese white copper as brought to us, is a mixt [sic: mixed] metal; so that the ore from which it was extracted must consist of various metallic substances; and from such ore that the natural "orichalcum" if it ever existed, was made." During the peak European importation of Chinese white-copper from 1750 to 1800, increased