Martin Heinrich Klaproth (1743-1817), the German chemist. He entered chemistry from an apprentice- ship as an apothecary and by 1810 had been appointed the first professor of chemistry at the new university of Berlin. He did much to develop analytical chemistry, and methods of gravimetric analysis in particular. His analyses led him to deduce that new elements must be present in various minerals; for example, uranium in pitchblende, zirconium in zircon, strontium in strontianite, and titanium in rutile. In each case the free element was later isolated by others. He began the study of the rare earth metals, and showed that nickel is present in meteorites.