Antoine-Jérôme Balard discovered bromine while investigating some salty water from Montpellier, France. He took the concentrated residue which remained after most of the brine had evaporated and passed chlorine gas into it. In so doing he liberated an orange-red liquid which he deduced was a new element. He sent an account of his findings to the French Academy’s journal in 1826.
A year earlier, a student at Heidelberg, Carl Löwig, had brought his professor a sample of bromine which he had produced from the waters of a natural spring near his home at Keruznach. He was asked to produce more of it, and while he was doing so Balard published his results and so became known at its discoverer.