QUICKSILVER, or MERCURY, one of the metals,
and so fusible that it cannot be reduced to a solid state
but at a degree of cold, equal to 40 below 0 of Fahren-
heit's thermometer. For the method of extracting
quicksilver from its ore, &c. see ORES, Reduction of.
For the various preparations, &c. see CHEMISTRY and
MATERIA MEDICA Index; and for the natural history of
the ores of quicksilver or mercury, see MINERALOGY
Index.
Mines of quicksilver are very rare, inasmuch that, ac-
cording to the calculations of Hoffman, there is 50 times
more gold got every year out of the mines than mercury
and its ores. But Dr Lewis, in his notes upon Newmann,
says, that Cramer suspects that Hoffman only meant five
times instead of 50; but neither the Latin nor the Eng-
lish edition of this author expresses any such thought; on
the contrary, he adopts the same opinion; and only adds,
that mercury is much more frequently met with than is
commonly believed; but being so volatile in the fire, it
often flies off in the roasting of ores, and escapes the at-
tention of metallurgists.
According to Newmann, the mines of Idria have pro-
duced at the rate of 231,778 pounds weight of mercury
per annum; but those of Almaden in Spain produce
much more. The chemists of Dijon inform us, that
their annual produce is five or six thousand quintals, or
between five and six hundred thousand pounds weight.
In the year 1717 there were upwards of 2,500,000
pounds of quicksilver sent from them to Mexico, for the
amalgamation of the gold and silver ores of that coun-
try.
At Guançavelica in Brasil the annual produce of the
mines, according to Bomare, amounts to one million of
pounds, which are carried overland to Lima, thence to
Arica, and lastly to Potosi for the same purpose.
Besides these mines there are others in Brasil near
Villa Rica, where such a quantity of cinnabar, and na-
tive running mercury are found near the surface of the
earth, that the black slaves often collect it in good quan-
tities, and sell it for a trifling price to the apothecaries;
but none of these mines have ever been worked or taken
notice of by the owners. Gold naturally amalgamated
with mercury is likewise met with in the neighbourhood
of that place; and it is said that almost all the gold
mines of that country are worked out by simply washing
them out with running water, after reducing into pow-
der the hard ores, which are sometimes imbedded in
quartzose and rocky matrices.
In the duchy of Deux Ponts and in the Lower Au-
stria the quicksilver flows from a schistose or stony ma-
triex, and is probably, says Mr Kirwan, mixed with
some other metal, as its globules are not perfectly spher-
ical. The mines of Friuli are all in similar beds or
strata. The metal is likewise found visibly diffused
through masses of clay or very heavy stone, of a white,
red, or blue colour; of which last kind are the mines of
Spain, some of Idria, and of Sicily. Malcagni found
fluid quicksilver, as well as native cinnabar and mineral
ethiops, near the lake of Travale in the duchy of Sien-
na; but the quantity was so small as not to be worth
the expense of working. On the other hand, the fol-
lowing mines afford profits to the owners after clearing
all expenses, viz. those at Kremnitz in Hungary; at
Horowitz in Bohemia; Zorge in Saxony; Wolfstein,
Stahlberg, and Moeschfeld in the Palatinate. Mercury
is also brought from Japan in the East Indies; but the
greatest part of what is sold in Europe as Japan cinnar-
bar is said to be manufactured in Holland.
Lemery, Pomet, and others, lay down some external
marks by which those places are distinguished where
there are mines of quicksilver, viz. thick vapours like
clouds arising in the months of April and May; the
plants being much larger and greener than in other
places: the trees seldom bearing flowers or fruit, and
putting forth their leaves more slowly than in other
places; but, according to Neumann, these marks are
far from being certain. They are not met with in all
places where there is quicksilver, and are observed in
places where there is none. Abundance of these cloudy
exhalations are met with in the Hartz forest in Ger-
many, though no mercury has ever been found there;
to which we may add, that though vast quantities of
mercurial ores are found at Almaden in Spain, none of
the above-mentioned indications are there to be met
with.
Native mercury was formerly sought from the mines
of Idria with great avidity by the alchemists for the pur-
pose of making gold; and others have showed as ridi-
culous an attachment to the Hungarian cinnabar, sup-
posing it to be impregnated with gold; nay, we are in-
formed by Newmann, that not only the cinnabar, anti-
mony, and copper of Hungary, but even the vine trees
of that country were thought to be impregnated with
the precious metal. Not many years ago a French che-
mist advertised that he had obtained a considerable quan-
tity of gold from the ashes of vine twigs and stems, as
well as of the garden soil where they grew: but the
falsehood of these assertions was demonstrated by the
count de Lauragais to the satisfaction of the Royal Aca-
demy of Sciences.
The reduction of mercury into a solid state, so that
Quicksilver it might be employed like silver, was another favourite alchemical pursuit. But all processes and operations of this kind, says Newmann, if they have mercury in them, are no other than hard amalgams. When melted lead or tin are just becoming consistent after fusion, if a stick be thrust into the metal, and the hole filled with quicksilver, as soon as the whole is cold, the mercury is found solid. Macquer informs us, that mercury becomes equally solid by being exposed to the fumes of lead. Maurice Hoffman, as quoted by Newmann, even gives a process for reducing mercury, thus coagulated, to a state of malleability, viz. by repeatedly melting and quenching it in linseed oil. Thus, he tells us, we obtain a metal which can be formed into rings and other utensils. But here the mercury is entirely dissipated by the repeated fusions, and nothing but the original lead is left. Wallerius, after mentioning strong soap-leys, or caustic lixivium, and some other liquors proper for fixing quicksilver, tells us, that by means of a certain gradatory water, the composition of which he learned from Creuling de Aureo Vellere, he could make a coagulum of mercury whenever he pleased, of such consistency that great part of it would resist cupellation; but what this gradatory water was, he has not thought proper to lay before the public.