David Forbes FRS (6 September 1828 – 5 December 1876) was a Manx mineralogist, metallurgist, and chemist.
This subject he studied at the University of Edinburgh, and he was still young when he was appointed superintendent of the mining and metallurgical works at Espedal in Norway.
Subsequently, he became a partner in the firm of Evans & Askin, nickel-smelters, of Birmingham, and in that capacity during the years 1857-1860 he visited Chile, Bolivia and Peru.
Besides reports for the Iron and Steel Institute, of which, during the last years of his life, he was foreign secretary, he wrote upwards of 50 papers on scientific subjects, among which are the following: The Action of Sulphurets on Metallic Silicates at High Temperatures; The Relations of the Silurian and Metamorphic Rocks of the south of Norway; The Causes producing Foliation in Rocks; The Chemical Composition of the Silurian and Cambrian Limestones; The Geology of Bolivia and Southern Peru and The Mineralogy of Chile.
[1] His observations on the geology of South America were given in a masterly essay, and these and subsequent researches threw much light on igneous and metamorphic phenomena and on the resulting changes in rock formations.