ON MERCURY.

By
Mr. Herman BOERHAAVE.
1734


I wrote last year some Observations on Quicksilver, by which it appeared that, although it seemed to be continually transformed into other bodies, it nevertheless preserved in a surprising manner the property of being immutable. I offered these Observations to that Learned Assembly which adorns England under the auspices of His Britannic Majesty. They were tasted there beyond my expectations; so that they have been judged worthy of being printed among the memoirs of this illustrious body. My only object in this writing was to report faithfully & precisely the operations that I made on Quicksilver, & the product of these operations, & to exempt my readers from the care & the expense necessary for the repeat. I now have the same purpose, & I offer here to this Academy so flourishing by the benefits of His Most Christian Majesty, some experiments that I made on the same subject. By joining these two Dissertations, one will be able to judge of the fidelity & the exactitude of the old & true Alchemists in what they said touching the Mercury; & we will see at the same time that it takes application & prudence to be in a position to explain their feelings, or to criticize them with foundation, I also hope to put those who are attached to Chemistry in a position not to be easily duped by the extravagant knowledge of modern alchemists, people who deep down know nothing good and solid, and who only have the art of catching the very real gold of those whom they make believe that they will teach them how to do it. Finally I will confirm what I have already proved of the immutability, simplicity & singular properties of Quicksilver. It is for an Assembly as learned as yours, Gentlemen, that it is appropriate to judge the usefulness and the truth of this writing, to the examination of which I beg you to give a few moments of respite from your more important. I know that these moments are rare, so I will take care to be as concise as possible. I enter into matter. I know that these moments are rare, so I will take care to be as concise as possible. I enter into matter. I know that these moments are rare, so I will take care to be as concise as possible. I enter into matter.

I
Pure quicksilver, such as one usually finds in the merchants in company at Amsterdam, left to digest for a long time on the fire, does not change into metal.
experience.

This quicksilver being distilled, left no faeces. After that mixed with distilled vinegar & sea salt, & stirred for a long time, it remained pure. I passed it through a Chamois skin, & then put a pound of it in a neat matrass with a long neck, the opening of which I stopped up with a cone of paper & covered with another paper well tied to the neck of the matrass, so that no dust could enter it, and that however the air had the passage to enter it and come out of it: I placed it on a stove at a continual heat , which in Mr. Fahrenheit's Thermometer, has always been maintained above one hundred degrees from the 15th of November, 1718, until the 23rd of May, 1734. I then found the Mercury fluid in this matrass with a little black dust on the surface. This dust revived in Mercury by rubbing it in a mortar. I distilled all that quicksilver in a neat glass retort, increasing the heat towards the end until the retort was almost red. Nothing remained in the retort, and the Mercury came out of it without any perceptible change.

corollaries.
1. Fire to the degree & for the time aforesaid does not change the fluidity, the volatility, nor the nature of the quicksilver put in a vase where the air has free passage, it was not made also no separation of the pure from the impure.
2. Nor was there any sensible generation of the least amount of metal.
3. Much less silver or gold.
4. Nothing of Mercury has been fixed in this operation, which has continued for 15 and a half years, there has not appeared the slightest beginning of metallic fixation, not even of lead, which however, according to those who boast of knowledge, is the metal which must be formed first by this operation.
5. This experiment is in no way favorable to the sentiment of those who affirm that metals are formed from quicksilver as matter, and from fire as fixing foutre, united by digestion.
6. There is every likelihood that all similar operations made with pure common Mercury do not at all correspond to what is promised, since the little black dust of which I have spoken is lighter than the Mercury on the surface. surface of which it floats, & that it becomes Mercury again very easily. Seen in the Philosophical Transactions what I said of a similar dust produced from Mercury by motion alone.
7. It does not appear that quicksilver can be changed in the mines into anything metallic whatsoever, by the sole action of subterranean heat acting for a long time, & in a place where the air has access. free: because the heat hardly rises beyond 70 degrees in the places where the veins of the metals are. It is said in truth that it takes a thousand years to produce this effect; but how could men who live so little be sure?
8. Sulphur, which the Alchemists believed to be one of the principles of metals, and which they say unites together the elements of quicksilver to make a solid body, fixed at a degree of fire capable of putting it in fusion, and malleable; this sulphur, I say, appears to be something quite different from the matter of the pure light of fire, although fire alone is the only means of producing this admirable union of this sulfur and Mercury.

However, in this experiment the air had free access to the Mercury, and one could perhaps say that this is what prevents this action of the fire, especially since the Alchemists say that raw air prevents the philosophical coction: this is what led me to make the following experience that I am going to bring to you.

II.
Quicksilver put in digestion in well-closed vessels, for the time expressed below, does not produce any metal.

operation.
I put pure quicksilver in a conical glass vase with a flat bottom, such as the Assayers use it for the separation of silver and gold, I exposed it to a heat of 100 degrees from December 6, 1732, to July 8, 1733. The vessel being always stopped up, the Mercury suffered no notable change; I took 6 ounces of it, which I put in a vase similar to the preceding one, into the opening of which I inserted the neck of an inverted vial, without putting the two vases together, I exposed it for 4 days in the fire of sand ardent enough for the Mercury to begin to rise, and this with a view to driving out all the humidity that there might be. When it seemed to me that there was no longer the slightest sign of humidity, I read exactly the place where these two vases joined; I exposed the Mercury to the sand fire violent enough to make it gently rise & fall; I continued this degree of heat until January 29, 1734. I found at the bottom of the vase only fluid Mercury slightly covered with a black dust, light & fine, nothing fixed, no precipitate, although the degree of heat has always been strong, approaching that of boiling water. So I passed this Mercury through a funnel of very neat and very dry paper, the opening of which at the bottom was barely large enough to allow a hair to pass through. The clean Mercury passed through this little hole, & it remained in the funnel, at its walls, & height of the little hole a little black which, by grinding it in a mortar, became Mercury again. I distilled this Mercury thus purified in a very clean glass retort over a sand fire, & at the end over a suppression fire; nothing at all remained fixed at the bottom of the retort. Quicksilver seemed perhaps a little smoother than before, but otherwise not changed at all.

corollary.
From this one can almost draw the same conclusions as from the preceding experiment, and by joining them to what I have written on this subject in the Philosophical Transactions, it will appear clearly that quicksilver is immutable from its point of view. nature by its mechanical movements, by distillations and by its described digestions. I conclude from all this, that Chemists can dispense with the useless labor of repeating all these operations, with a view to fixing Mercury, or changing it into any other body whatsoever; I advise them, moreover, to beware of those ignoramuses, abounding in vain promises, the least bad kind of which are those who try to hazard experiments at the expense of others.

I am going to report the result of some other experiments that I made on metals, and which cost me no less work than your previous ones, I have been working for a long time to find out exactly, if it is true that metals can be resolved by art into quicksilver & into another principle several Authors affirm it so clearly & in so many places, that it did not seem to me even allowed to doubt the fact, I believed it on the faith of these Authors; but to be convinced of this by my own eyes, I began to operate on lead. The famous Van Helmont says that lead, because of the crudity of its metallic nature, such that sometimes fire alone can destroy it, can also by the fatty part of its fixed salts be divided into the principles which compose it, so that he lets the raw quicksilver flow. so that this metal is transformed into volatile, fluid quicksilver, which cannot withstand fire. Joachim Becherus assures the same thing & responds to the success of several operations that he describes for this purpose. (in the Collectanea quingentorum experimentorum at pag. 310. ad pag* 333) Here is clearly & in a few words what I learned on this subject, at the cost of a very long & very boring work. so that this metal is transformed into volatile, fluid quicksilver, which cannot withstand fire. Joachim Becherus assures the same thing & responds to the success of several operations that he describes for this purpose. (in the Collectanea quingentorum experimentorum at pag. 310. ad pag* 333) Here is clearly & in a few words what I learned on this subject, at the cost of a very long & very boring work.

II
OPERATION
I dissolved pure white lead, as much as it could dissolve, in the spirit of nitre weakened by six times its weight in water; I filtered this dissolution which turned out to be extremely clear; this liquor put in a clear glass vessel, thick with a gentle heat, then left to rest in a cold place, crystals formed there, of which I took 14 ounces, which I reduced to powder in a glass mortar, & with a glass pestle: I dissolved this powder in very pure rainwater, & I weakened this solution with three times as much rainwater, then I slowly & carefully poured another filtered & very clear solution, made of armoniacal salt, into rainwater; the mixture becomes white as milk, and the lead precipitates first, as happens with silver dissolved in aquafortis, as soon as salt armonia is mixed with it; the powder precipitated at the bottom, & which was white as snow, being washed in a lot of water, then dried, was found to be very insipid, & weighed 18½ ounces: I put 6 ounces of this white & dry powder in a clean glass urinal, and I poured into it to the height of two fingers, below this powder, a very strong lye, composed of quicklime and gravelly ashes, and which I kept several years in a tightly corked bottle; then I covered the urinal with a fog paper well tied around its neck, & I placed it in a putrefaction furnace at a heat of 96 degrees, where I left it since the 6th of February 1732, until August 13 of the same year, to try if this mixture exposed to the air, would be changed by this heat of putrefaction; I only found a white mass which I reduced to powder, and which tasted like salt; I put it in a glass retort coated with a bed composed of clay and sand; I pushed it over an open fire until it blushed, & kept it for three hours in this state: a little white soot rose in the neck of the retorte, but not at all of Mercury, & it is remained in the bottom a fragile matter half vitrified, color of ashes; I reduced it to a powder of the same color, which I ground for a long time in a mortar with a lye of fixed alkali salt and quicklime; I dried it over a slow fire, I poured new alkali into it, & I exposed it to the heat of 96 degrees, since August 18, 1732, until October 15, 1733, grinding it every day in the glass mortar where it was, which was only covered with paper, so that the air had free access to it; it was then a white powder, dry and acrid: I again poured the same lye into it, and I ground it until it was reduced to a paste; I put it into putrefaction as above, continuing to grind it often, from the aforesaid day, until February 21, 1734; it was then a saline mass, white, & with a strong taste approaching sea salt: after having crushed & washed it with water, & allowed it to dry very slowly, I had a very tasteless white powder. ; I put it in a retort where I held it for a few hours at the highest fire that the lute glass can support; on May 20, 1734, there came no Mercury, the neck of the retorte was painted in various colors, & the crumbly mass which remained at the bottom, also cast various colors arranged in layers, & weighed 5 ounces 6 gros demi; the powder in which it was reduced, by grinding it, was of the color of reddish ashes.

SCHOLIE.
In this operation, the lead was first ceruse, that is to say, it was penetrated & dissolved by the vapor of the vinegar, & reduced to white lime, then reduced to fine powder. It was dissolved in the spirit of weakened nitre, & thereby became a very clear, colorless, mild-tasting liquor, in which the lead was reduced & broken up into exceedingly small parts. In the third place, the dissolved armoniac salt that was poured into it, by driving out the spirit of nitre, substituted the spirit of sea salt, & uniting itself intimately with the metallic part of the lead, disposed it, as much as possible, to facilitate the separation of the Mercury from the metallic part, according to the opinion of all those who are believed to have written best on these matters; because they attribute especially to the armoniacal salt and the sea salt, the property of separating Mercury from metals. In the fourth place, the lime thus prepared & put in digestion for seven months with a very violent alkali, seemed to cause the Mercury to reappear, by absorbing the sulfur of the lead: however, although pushed to a high fire, it did not give the lesser Mercury. Fifthly, this mass crushed for a long time & strongly, & then mixed with a new very strong alkali, & put in digestion for fourteen months, gave no appearance of Mercury. Sixthly, it was further ground with new alkali & put into digestion for five months, so that after all these operations, it was sufficiently exposed to the action of the alkali, so that it had the time to separate the sulphurous part from the lead & that the Mercury freed from this sulphur, could be expressed from this mass by the form of fire. However, after all this work, the largest fire did not appear any Mercury.

It is therefore clear that what the Authors boldly advance concerning the facility of extracting Mercury from lead, is not confirmed by experiment. Now lead is, say these Authors, the metal which contains the most Mercury and which is most easily resolved into Mercury by the resuscitating salts. The thing is therefore more difficult in the other metals. The Authors assure us, however, that this can be done fairly easily, and they prescribe methods not very different from the one I have just reported, and which, after all the trouble it caused me, made me see that what they had promised me, did not succeed at all. I doubt whether these Authors were founded in observation in their assertions on this subject; & I am very inclined to believe that they rather gave up their opinion in this matter, that they only consulted experience. All that I have just reported will serve at least to exempt the reader from the trouble & expense of repeating these observations, & to prevent him from easily admitting these pretended principles of his science of metals. It would be well to wish that these skilful and laborious chemists had faithfully told us the result of the experiments which deceived their expectation, and that they had never prescribed operations to us before having carried them out themselves, that would save us time. time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research. will serve at least to exempt the reader from the trouble & expense of repeating these observations, & to prevent him from easily admitting these pretended principles of his science of metals. It would be well to wish that these skilful and laborious chemists had faithfully told us the result of the experiments which deceived their expectation, and that they had never prescribed operations to us before having carried them out themselves, that would save us time. time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research. will serve at least to exempt the reader from the trouble & expense of repeating these observations, & to prevent him from easily admitting these pretended principles of his science of metals. It would be well to wish that these skilful and laborious chemists had faithfully told us the result of the experiments which deceived their expectation, and that they had never prescribed operations to us before having carried them out themselves, that would save us time. time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research. & to prevent him from easily admitting these pretended principles of his science of metals. It would be well to wish that these skilful and laborious chemists had faithfully told us the result of the experiments which deceived their expectation, and that they had never prescribed operations to us before having carried them out themselves, that would save us time. time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research. & to prevent him from easily admitting these pretended principles of his science of metals. It would be well to wish that these skilful and laborious chemists had faithfully told us the result of the experiments which deceived their expectation, and that they had never prescribed operations to us before having carried them out themselves, that would save us time. time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research. & that they had never prescribed operations to us before having performed them themselves, that would save us time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research. & that they had never prescribed operations to us before having performed them themselves, that would save us time, expense & work, & Chemistry could in a short time take its place among the sciences. By any other route, if I am not seriously mistaken, we will never arrive at the truth which is the goal of our research.

III.
Isacus Hollandus wrote that quicksilver could easily be extracted from lead salt made by means of distilled vinegar: to test it, I prepared with the best litharge & vinegar of distilled wine, this concrete juice which is called Saturn's juice; I calcined 2 ounces of it in an open glass vessel by a gentle fire continued from June 6, 1734, until the following July 19. The resulting white powder was pounded very finely in a glass mortar with a glass pestle. I had it ground very quickly and for a very long time, adding to it a lye as laden with the most violent fixed alkali salt as the water could dissolve. I kept it in the same mortar covered with paper, in continuous heat from July 21st until November 27th. During all this time I always cared, as soon as this powder was dry, to grind it again, adding new lye. I held it, covered with a paper, at a heat of 90 degrees, drying it, moistening it & grinding it thus alternately during all this time. On the last day I pounded this dry & white matter into an impalpable powder, & having put it in a lute glass retort, I pushed the fire by degrees with precaution, until the retort was reddened, & I held in this state for 4 hours. Not the smallest globule of Mercury appeared either in the receptacle or in the neck of the retort, in the bottom of which there was found a very black, light mass, in the form of powder with a taste of burning alkali. I put it on November 28 in a glass dish in the cellar, where it first became damp, & I left it there until January 8, 1735. This matter had then increased in volume, all the saline part having turned into liquid by itself by the help of the humidity of the air, & the metal part being at the bottom in the form of black dust. I dried everything together, both what had melted and what hadn't, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air. This matter had then increased in volume, all the saline part having turned into liquid by itself with the aid of the humidity of the air, and the metallic part being at the bottom in the form of black dust. I dried everything together, both what had melted and what hadn't, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air. This matter had then increased in volume, all the saline part having turned into liquid by itself with the aid of the humidity of the air, and the metallic part being at the bottom in the form of black dust. I dried everything together, both what had melted and what hadn't, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air. all the saline part having turned into liquid of itself by the aid of the humidity of the air, and the metallic part being at the bottom in the form of black dust. I dried everything together, both what had melted and what hadn't, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air. all the saline part having turned into liquid of itself by the aid of the humidity of the air, and the metallic part being at the bottom in the form of black dust. I dried everything together, both what had melted and what hadn't, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air. both what had melted and what had not, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air. both what had melted and what had not, and this mixture turned out to be very black. I put it back again in a glass retort, & I pushed it at the end to a fire which kept everything red for 4 hours. There did not appear this time either than the other, not the least mark of Mercury, neither in the receptacle, nor in the retort, in the bottom of which there remained an ash-colored matter of a burning taste like fire. , which immediately turned into liquid on being exposed to the air.
In this operation the lead dissolved & opened by the pure vinegar, & disposed of so strongly that it could be intimately penetrated by the salt; mixed & ground with a fixed, caustic & liquid alkali; put into digestion, put into putrefaction, exposed to violent fire; dissolved by the humidity of the air for a philosophical month; again pounded, dried, pushed over a high heat, did not produce the least amount of Mercury.

What, then, to think of this subject and of what credulous, lazy people, or people attached to speculation alone, so boldly put forward about it! They commit those who have more application to work than knowledge, to useless work & excessive expense, & thereby render odious one of the finest arts. Others can profit from my pains & the expense I have made,

IV.
After having assured myself by my own experience, that the salts called resuscitating, cannot extract, in the manner described, Mercury from lead; I wanted to try what quicksilver itself could do in this case; especially given that Chemists call this fluid the Water of metals, in which, they say, these die, are reborn and come out more beautiful than they were before. So I melted an ounce of lead in a clean iron spoon. At the same time I heated in another similar spoon three ounces of pure quicksilver. I then poured the hot Mercury over the molten lead; it got mixed in with them first, and they formed into a solid mass, silver in color. I pounded it, and after having softened it, I put it in a small matrass which I heated, & having then stopped it with a cork, I put it in a digestion furnace at an always equal heat of 84 degrees, from February 11, 1732, until January 10, 1735, it was an amalgam soft, flowing like butter under the pestle, blackening first when shaken, weighing just four ounces. I put it the same day in a glass retort, very clean, on a sand fire, & at the end on a suppression fire, to the point that the sand was all red, & that for four hours; he passed 2 ounces 6 gros demi of Mercury into the container. There was at the bottom & at the neck of the retort a red powder formed by Mercury in the distillation, there was a little quicksilver at the neck, & there were a few small globules of very pure lead in the form of dust, all together weighed 52 grains. Finally there was at the bottom a solid mass of lead weighing 1 ounce minus 5 grains, which made the value of those little lead globules in the form of dust of which I have just spoken, so that it seems that all the lead remained there. , & that 43 grains of Mercury had dissipated. Those who have some knowledge of these matters will easily find the cause of this dissipation in the causes mentioned above, especially if they consider that in distillations a part of this Mercury remains attached to the very extensive surface of a large recipient. , & that another part remains in the form of small clouds on the surface of the water which must always be put in the container. which made the value of those little lead globules in the form of dust of which I have just spoken, so that it seems that all the lead remained there, and that 43 grains of Mercury had dissipated. Those who have some knowledge of these matters will easily find the cause of this dissipation in the causes mentioned above, especially if they consider that in distillations a part of this Mercury remains attached to the very extensive surface of a large recipient. , & that another part remains in the form of small clouds on the surface of the water which must always be put in the container. which made the value of those little lead globules in the form of dust of which I have just spoken, so that it seems that all the lead remained there, and that 43 grains of Mercury had dissipated. Those who have some knowledge of these matters will easily find the cause of this dissipation in the causes mentioned above, especially if they consider that in distillations a part of this Mercury remains attached to the very extensive surface of a large recipient. , & that another part remains in the form of small clouds on the surface of the water which must always be put in the container.

I learned by this operation that by a digestion of Mercury with lead, continued for nearly 3 years, & by a distillation of the most violent, one cannot extract any Mercury from lead, & that one cannot either, by this means, fix the Mercury in lead, because in the distillation of the Mercury, there is always a small quantity of it which changes into red powder which is fixed in the fire in this application, but the weight of the lead always remains the same.

v.
I did the same operation on an amalgam made of 3 ounces of quicksilver & 1 ounce of good pewter, I put it at the same degree of heat for the same time, then I put it to distil in the same way. way into a glass retort by the same fire: this was the success. I withdrew from the container 2 ounces 4 gross of Mercury; in the bottom of the retort there was a powder of which a part was fine & composed of a small quantity of fixed Mercury, & the other coarser part was black, composed of very small pieces of a consistency such as is that of tin. There was still a little Mercury at the bottom of the col de la retorte: all this together weighed 2 large 5 grains. At the bottom was a solid mass of tin weighing 1 ounce 1 coarse 9 grains. The waste was 46 grains: I have already given the reasons for this waste.
It appears that by this operation one cannot extract tin from Mercury; but there were 3 large 14 grains, that is to say, more of the seventh part of the Mercury which united with the tin, & so well fixed, that it could not be separated from it by a fire that made the sand red, continued for 4 hours, There is a great connection between Jupiter & Mercury & the Sun is in the middle of the two. Nov. Lum Rem. Tractat 9. VI

I poured 10 ounces of Mercury, after heating them well, over 2 ounces of very good pewter smelted in a neat iron spoon. I ground the whole thing into a uniform amalgam that I put very hot & very dry in a clean, hot glass bottle, which I then corked well; I placed it in a wooden box, which I attached to the hammer (hammer) of a continuously working fulling mill, and there it was in almost continuous motion day and night from November 30, 1732, until on January 9, 1735. I then removed the bottle which was whole, at the bottom of which was flowing Mercury, & after a rest of a few days, there was above a rather hard amalgam; the whole thing weighed exactly 12 ounces. I had distilled in the 11 ounce 7 lute glass retort, big of this amalgam & that over an open fire pushed towards the end to the point of keeping the retort all red for two hours. Only precisely the same quantity of Mercury came out of it that had been put in it, & it came out very fluid, & there remained at the bottom a mass of tin attached to the glass with a little yellow matter which was like flaky. This mass fused at a mediocre fire like pewter, and then the surface exposed to the air was painted in various colors. The mass of tin weighed 1 ounce 6 gross half, & there was still a small quantity of the yellow matter just mentioned. & it came out of it very fluid, & there remained at the bottom a mass of tin attached to the glass with a little yellow matter which was like flaky. This mass fused at a mediocre fire like pewter, and then the surface exposed to the air was painted in various colors. The mass of tin weighed 1 ounce 6 gross half, & there was still a small quantity of the yellow matter just mentioned. & it came out of it very fluid, & there remained at the bottom a mass of tin attached to the glass with a little yellow matter which was like flaky. This mass fused at a mediocre fire like pewter, and then the surface exposed to the air was painted in various colors. The mass of tin weighed 1 ounce 6 gross half, & there was still a small quantity of the yellow matter just mentioned.

It is therefore certain that with the aid of a movement continued for such a long time, the Mercury cannot dissolve the tin, so that one can draw Mercury from it by a distillation made at a very high heat.

SCHOLIE
A singular thing which I noticed in these last three operations, it is that the Mercury separated from the lead or the tin by the distillation, was extremely liquid, and that by stirring it in a clean white earthenware pot , it paled in a very short time the surface of this earthenware, and left a small, very adherent black spot. As soon as I had cleaned this spot by trying it with very clean and very dry paper, another one first formed, and this happened several times. This made me think that it must be attributed to a part of the fatty metal which in the distillation rose with the Mercury, & remained attached to its surface & then separated from it. To clarify this fact, I spread this Mercury on very neat & very dry white paper & it left a slight black trace everywhere it went; besides, the surface of this Mercury was always covered with an extremely thin film which seemed like a bit of seed. Thus, although by often repeated distillations of Mercury, some parts of the other metals may well unite with Mercury, it would not follow that some were changed into Mercury.

I had taken care to make the same experiment with lead, & it had been exposed to the same movement during the same time; but in the time that I wanted to have it detached from this hammer of the mill, the bottle was broken by misfortune, and the material being lost, I could not push the operation to the end.

These experiments can shed more light on the nature of Quicksilver. I have done several others on Mercury & on the metals, very different from these & which cost me much more work. I will give them to the public as soon as I find the time.