Introduction to the study of inorganic chemistry / by William Allen Miller.

  • Miller, William Allen, 1817-1870.
Date:
1871
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Introduction to the study of inorganic chemistry / by William Allen Miller. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    mercury briskly ; a black film will be found over the surface. Withdraw the cork, blow out the air with a pair of bellows, and then renew the shaking. Repeat this three or four times until the black powder ceases to increase. Then pour the mercury into a cone of writing-paper folded like an ordinary filter, but pierced at the point with a pin-hole, and supported in a funnel: the metal will run through, and leave the oxide of lead, mixed with finely divided mercury, adhering to the ])apcr. If a little finely-powdered loaf-sugar be added before agitating the mercury, the process is effected more quickly. If a large quantity of mercury is to be juirified from foreign metals, it is best to place it in a shallow layer on the bottom of a dish, and to cover it with nitric acid diluted with ten or twelve times its bulk of water, leaving it for a few days at ordinary temperatures, frequently stirring the acid and mercury together ; after which it may be washed, and dried with a cloth. Mercury is attacked immediately by chlorine and by bro- mine ; more slowly by iodine. It also dissolves most of the metals, except iron and platinum. Gold, silver, and tin amalgams are used in the arts. It also combines readily with lead, bismuth, antimony, zinc, and copper. The amalgamation is immediately effected by cleansing the sur- face of the metal with a solution of mercury in nitric .acid, and then placing the metal in the mercury. Nitric acid dissolves mercury with great energy and liberation of nitrous fumes. Hydrochloric acid is without action on the metal. Sulphuric acid, when boiled u])on it, dissolves mercury, while sulphurous anhydride is given off; but it has no action upon it in the cold. Mercury is used in medicine, mixed, by sini[rle grinding with chalk, into a grey powder; and when incor])orated with a proper proportion of conserve, it forms what is well known blue pill. It .acts as a ])owerful metallic poison. Work- men exposed to its vapours in the oi)erations of gilding suffer from a peculiar tremulous affection, called mercurial palsy ; and it often produces salivation, with ulceration of