Maggie Smith is an English comedyactress. She was born in 1934 at Ilford in Essex. She is the daughter of a pathologist for Oxford University, she trained for the stage at the Oxford Playhouse School. She made her London debut in a revue in 1952 and her first Broadway appearance in 'New Faces' in 1956. She has since appeared in numerous plays on both sides of the Atlantic, generally reaping rave reviews from critics. She has made relatively few film appearances but has enjoyed a high 'batting average' as a screen actress in public and critical esteem. She won Academy Awards for her performances in The Prime of Miss JeanBrodie (best actress; 1969) and California Suite (best supporting actress; 1978) and was nominated for Oscars for Othello (best supporting actress; 1965), Travels With My Aunt (best actress; 1972), and A Room With a View (best supporting actress; 1986). She won the British Film Academy Award as best actress for A Private Function (1984) ) and The Lonely Passion of JudithHearne (1987). She was awarded a Tony in 1990 for her Broadway performance in 'Lettice and Lovage', and in 1993 was nominated for an Emmy for Best Actress for her role in the PBS version of 'Suddenly, Last Summer.' Her first husband was actor Robert Stephens; her second screenwriter Beverley Cross. Research Maggie Smith
Galena (lead sulphide) or galenite is virtually the only source of lead and an important ore of silver. It is found both in masses and crystallized in cubes, but sometimes in truncated octahedra and has the formulae PbS and a relative hardness of 3. It is a very common metallic mineral, its colour is bluish-grey, like lead, but brighter; its lustre metallic; texture foliated; fragments cubical; soft, but brittle. When found in veins that show a connection to igneous rocks, it is frequently found with silver minerals. Galena is also found in limestones either as veins or as a replacement deposit.
Galena effervesces with nitric and hydrochloric acids. For the most part it contains about 86.6 per cent of lead and 13.4 of sulphur, generally some silver, and also antimony, zinc, iron, and bismuth. Where the proportion of silver is high it is known as argentiferous galena, and worked with a view to the extraction of this metal. Galena occurs principally in the older or primary rocks, being found in England mainly in the Mountain Limestone (base of the Carboniferousformation). In the United States it is very abundant, the deposit of galena in which the mines of Illinois are situated being extensive and important. Research Galena
Sulphides refers to a mineral group where sulphur is combined with one or more metals. The sulphides form an important class of minerals that includes the majority of the ore minerals. With them are classed the similar but rarer sulpharsenides, arsenides, and tellurides. Most of the sulphide minerals are opaque with distinctive colours and characteristically coloured streaks. Those that are non-opaque, such as cinnabar, realgar, and orpiment, have high refractive indices and transmit light only on thin edges.
The general formula for the sulphides is given as XmZn, in which X represents the metallic elements and Z the non-metallic element. The general order of listing of the various minerals is in a decreasing ratio of X:Z. The sulphides can be divided into small groups of similar structures but it is difficult to make broad generalizations about their structure. Regular octahedral or tetrahedral coordination about sulphur is found in many simple sulphides such as in galena, PbS, (with an NaCI type structure), and in sphalerite, Zns. In more complex sulphides, as well as sulphosalts, distorted coordination polyhedra may be found. Many of the sulphides have ionic and covalent bonding, whereas others, displaying most of the properties of metals, have metallic bonding characteristics. Research Sulphides
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