GLUCINUM, an alternative name for the metal beryllium (q.v.). When L. N. Vauquelin in 1798 published in the Annales de chimie an account of a new earth obtained by him from beryl he refrained from giving the substance a name, but in a note to his paper the editors suggested glucine, from -yXuei e, sweet, in reference to the alleged taste of its salts, whence the name glucinum or glucinium (symbol Gl. or sometimes G).