Zirconium combines with sulphur to form a sulphide, and with carbon to form several carbides.
Carbon was joined with silicon, zirconium and titanium, while boron, being trivalent, was relegated to another group. A general classification of elements, however, was not realized by Frankland, nor even by Odling, who had also investigated the question from the valency standpoint.
In the same year as Klaproth detected uranium, he also isolated zirconia or zirconium oxide from the mineral variously known as zircon, hyacinth, jacynth and jargoon; but he failed to obtain the metal, this being first accomplished some years later by Berzelius, who decomposed the double potassium zirconium fluoride with potassium.
In the following year, 1795, Klaproth announced the discovery of a third new element, titanium; its isolation' (in a very impure form), as in the case of zirconium, was reserved for Berzelius.
Rosenbuschite, hiortdahlite, and some other rare members containing zirconium and fluorine, occur as accessory constituents in the nephelinesyenite of southern Norway.
