After they returned to Spain, the brothers explored the heavy black mineral wolframite and obtained from it a dense yellow powder (“wolframic acid”) which they realized to be identical to the tungstic acid Scheele had obtained from the mineral “tung-sten” in Sweden, and which, he was convinced, contained a new element. They went ahead, as Scheele had not, to heat this with charcoal, and obtained the pure new metallic element (which they named wolframium) in 1783.
