One of these is tantalum. Tantalus, the favourite son of Zeus, was cruelly punished for an offence against the gods. He had to stand up to his neck in water and above him hung branches with juicy aromatic fruit. But whenever he wanted to quench his thirst the water would flow away from him, and whenever he wanted to appease his hunger and stretched his hand out to pick a fruit, the branches would swing away from him. The sufferings experienced by chemists before their efforts to isolate the element tantalum from its ores were successful could be compared only to those of Zeus's son. The names titanium and vanadium also stem from Greek mythology. 

   There are elements which were named in honour of various countries or continents, such as germanium, gallium (from Gaul, the ancient name of France), polonium (Poland), scandium (Scandinavia), francium, ruthenium (Ruthenia is the Latin for Russia), europium and americium.

   Other elements were named after cities. These are: hafnium (Copenhagen), lutetium (from Lutetia, the Latin name for Paris), berkelium (in honour of the town of Berkely, U.S.A.), yttrium, terbium, erbium, and ytterbium (after Ytterby, a small town in Sweden where the mineral containing these elements was first discovered). 

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