mercurial

December 18, 2024 7:24 AM

As much as people love mercury, they love gold more, and the history of mercury is a history of gold. When mercury is added to pulverized gold or silver ore, it combines with the metal flakes into a separate, heavy compound. When this is heated, much of the mercury boils off, and relatively pure solid gold or silver is left behind. If you capture the vapor in a condenser, it can be used again: a perpetual motion of transmutation [harper's/ungated (previously)]
posted by HearHere (8 comments total)

This is a really good essay, thank you for sharing it.
posted by box at 9:03 AM on December 18 [2 favorites]

My biggest surprise was that the author hadn't played with the mercury as a child. Didn’t everybody have a bottle of mercury harvested from innumerable broken thermometers and whatever? No? Just me?
posted by toodleydoodley at 9:05 AM on December 18 [7 favorites]

This is where I as Gen X can come in and say my dad brought me some mercury to play with ("Just be careful and don't spill it on the carpet") and these days everyone is so worried about toxins but I turned out P̶̛̛͙̮̔̆̃͐̓̅́͆͜ê̸͍̙͉͖̱r̴̡̛̺̟̘̐̿f̵̧̨̛̘͓̗̜̘͍̥͊͐ę̷̩̟̰͖̀̔̑̉́̇͊̈́̿̈́͘ͅc̵̡̢̨̧̨̥͈̩̳̤͚͍̽͆̐͛̐̉̄̒̚̚͝t̶͈̳̹͙̃̆͊̆̈́̀͝ĺ̶͈̣̾͌y̶̡̩̟̠̤͍͐ ̵̙͎̼͓͈͍̮̗͓̀f̵̭̺̜̄͐͌̃̐͐̈́̀̅͝͝į̵̱̤͚̰͚͓̏͒̆̊͝ņ̷͖͔̣͈́̈́̌̎̆͠e̵̙̺̘͍̳̖̅́͗̽̐͑͘͝ ̸͕̲̻̑͑̈́͐̓͊̑
posted by The otter lady at 9:35 AM on December 18 [5 favorites]

And all this time, the permafrost, which holds the largest reservoir of elemental mercury on the planet, has been melting.

Thawing Alaskan permafrost is unleashing more mercury, confirming scientists’ worst fears

Source of Arctic Mercury Pollution Identified in New Study
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 10:36 AM on December 18 [1 favorite]

My dad has an old container with a distressingly large quantity of mercury (half a cup? a cup?) somewhere in the horrible, damp basement of their 100-year old country house that he acquired who-knows-where in the '50's or '60's. I never knew he had it until he proudly showed it to me about 15 years ago -- look at this, isn't it neat, you can't get stuff like this anymore! I was aghast and told him to properly dispose of the stuff, but I know it is still lurking down there somewhere. So I guess that has to be dealt with sometime in the future.
posted by fimbulvetr at 11:18 AM on December 18 [1 favorite]

Many (many!) years ago I was a grad student at the Natural History Museum in London, spending most of my time in the chemistry lab. It's an old building and people often came across stuff in old cupboards that had been there for decades. If it looked at all chemical they'd bring it to us for identification and disposal.

I still remember the two porters dragging a trolley, on which was a glass container holding the best part of half a gallon of mercury. The Lord only knoweth what that had been for.

Mind you, that was tame compared to some of the things we were brought... thallium salts, picric acid, cyanide...
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 1:25 PM on December 18 [2 favorites]

My Dad brought home a plastic(?) container of mercury, from his place of employment. The bottle was the size of a standard mustard or catsup squeeze bottle found in most restaurants at that time His joke was to ask us kids to hand him the bottle. Har har. We also played with it and coated old dull dimes and quarters so they were shiny again
posted by Czjewel at 7:18 PM on December 18 [1 favorite]

My childhood source of mercury was from my father’s lab’s vacuum pumps.

For a fee, I can advise against buying certain houses in Missoula, MT.
posted by skyscraper at 12:44 AM on December 19 [1 favorite]