1 Mercury or Quicksilver.

Syn. Mercure (F.), Quicksilber (G.), Kwitzilver (Belg.), Quicsolv (Dan.), Quicksilver (Swed.), Mercurio (I.), Azogue (S. & Portug.), Abue (Arab.) Para (H.), Sodum (San.), Rassum (Tam.), Parah (Duk.), Seemab (Pers.), Rassa ( Malay).

This metal is found in Spain, Germany, and Hungary; Siberia, the Philippines, China, and Peru. The most productive mines are those of Idria, Carinthia, and the Palatinate; Almaden near Cordova, in Spain2; and Guanca Velica near Potosi, in Peru.3 It is procured,

Native quicksilver is found either in globules, disseminated on the surface, or collected in the crevices of other mercurial ores, and in marlite, calcareous spar, or other fossils. It has the lustre, opacity, fluidity, and other qualities of the pure metal; but, owing to the small quantity which is found of it, the quicksilver of commerce is usually obtained from cinnabar. This ore is red, varying in the shades of its colour, and in the degrees of its lustre. It occurs massive, disseminated, and crystallized: in the two former states always opaque, and in the latter translucent, or transparent. To obtain the metal the ore, after being sorted, is reduced to powder, and mingled with about one fourth of quicklime in powder. This mixture is put into large iron retorts, which are placed in a long furnace, and glass receivers adapted to each, but not luted until all the moisture it contains be driven off; the joinings of the vessels are then closely stopped with well-tempered clay, and a full red heat kept up for seven or eight hours, in which time the mercury is volatilized, and condensed in the receiver.

About ten ounces of mercury are usually obtained from 100 lbs, of the oren We have no authentic information to enable us to fix the period when mercury was first known; but the Greeks were well acquainted with it; and Aristotle mentions a wooden Venus which moved by its means, probably on the same principle as the Chinese puppets, to which motion is given by means of mercury.2

Graecorum.

2 This is the oldest and the richest mine of cinnabar in Europe. It was wrought by the Romans two thousand years ago; and yields about 6000 quintals of fluid mercury annually.

3 These were discovered in 1566 and 1567, by Henry Garces, a Portuguese. Garces was a native of Porto, and went to Peru in the Spanish service. Examining one day the red earth which the Indians used as paint, and called limpi, he observed it was native cinnabar; and, knowing that mercury was extracted from cinnabar in Europe, he began to work the Peruvian mines.

Officinal. Hydrargyrum, Lond. Hydrargyria, Edin. Hydrargyrum, Dub. Quicksilver.

Syn. Mercure coulant (F.). Vide Hydrargyrum.

The greater part of the quicksilver which is used in this country is brought from Austria in leather bags, containing 31 lbs. of the metal; they are packed in casks, two or three together in one cask. Some, however, is brought from Spain in iron bottles, which contain from 60 lbs. to 1 cwt. of mercury.3 It is often adulterated by the admixture of lead, bismuth, zinc, or tin. When the metal quickly loses its lustre, is covered with a film, or is less fluid and mobile than usual, leaves a stain on a delft plate, or does not readily divide into round globules, but into those with tails, it may be suspected. Lead is discovered by shaking a portion of the suspected mercury in distilled water, then digesting in distilled vinegar, and adding to the solution water saturated with sulphureted hydrogen gas, which gives a brown precipitate if lead be present; and by this means one part of lead may be detected in 15'260 of mercury. Bismuth is detected by pouring the nitric solution into distilled water, when the bismuth will appear as a white precipitate. Exposing the mercury to heat detects zinc; and tin is discovered by a weak nitro-muriatic solution of gold, which is precipitated purple by tin.

It is purified by distillation with iron-filings, or by agitation in diluted sulphuric acid until the acid cease to become turbid; and then, after washing and drying the globules into which it has been divided, passing them through a pin-hole in the bottom of a funnel of writing paper.1

1 Aikin's Chymical Dictionary.

2 For the manner in which this is effected, see Muschenbrock's Introd. in Phil. Nat. i. p. 153.

3 The quicksilver mines in both Spain and Austria are a government monopoly.

Qualities.-Pure mercury is inodorous, insipid, and of a bright white or silver colour. Its specific gravity is 13.568.2 It is always fluid at the ordinary temperature of the atmosphere, but becomes a solid malleable metal in a degree of cold sufficient to sink the thermometer to 39° below 0 of Fahrenheit, in which state its sp. gr. is 15.612.3 It boils at 662°, and is volatilized unchanged in close vessels, but is not capable of combustion.4 Mercury is oxidized by the air at its usual temperature, when subjected to agitation, and is fully saturated with oxygen at a continued heat of 600°. It is oxidized by and combines with sulphuric acid at a boiling heat, and with nitric acid at 60° Fahrenheit; and its oxides, which are two, a protoxide and a binoxide, enter into combinations with acids. It unites with chlorine, iodine, sulphur, phosphorus, and cyanogen; and combines with many metals, forming what are called amalgams.

Medical properties and uses.-Mercury in its metallic state exerts no action on the animal system. It has, nevertheless, been administered in doses of a pound or more with the view of operating mechanically, and overcoming by its weight the obstruction of the intestines which exists in ileus; but, as it cannot act by its gravity on the ascending part of the bowels, it is not easy to conceive how it should have been ever recommended; and the events of the cases in which it has been given have sufficiently proved the futility of the practice.