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fandomhigh2008-10-27 01:45 pm
brandyforapples.livejournal.com) wrote in fandomhigh2008-10-27 01:45 pm
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Basics of Alchemy - Monday, 10/27 - Period Five
Abigail Irene Garrett looked rather serious today, considering what they'd be doing. The lab equipment was out, there were no handouts, but she had a pointer in her hands and a piece of chalk sitting next to her that was going to get some use.
"Good afternoon, students. If you could take your seats? We'll be discussing one of the most dangerous and confusing elements in alchemy: mercury."
"No alchemical symbol is so confusing as Mercury. Here are some explanations of this mysterious substance. As sulphur is the symbol for the spirit, mercury is the symbol of the soul. The soul can be described in many ways, and thus mercury has gained a mysterious character in alchemy. It is used for almost everything. It is used to symbolize certain aspects of the alchemical work, but at the same time it is them all. Alchemists often speak about mercury in the form of the god Mercury, whom we encounter in their engravings and paintings. As the god Mercury he is often seen as having qualities that belong both to mercury and to sulfur."*
She smiled at the assembled.
"Called quicksilver by the ancients, it is a liquid metal that could be found weeping through cracks in certain rocks or accumulating in small puddles in mountain grottoes. It was also obtained by roasting cinnabar (mercury sulfide). The shiny metal would seep from the rocks and drip down into the ashes, from which it was later collected. The early alchemists made red mercuric oxide by heating quicksilver in a solution of nitric acid. The acid, which later alchemists called 'aqua fortis,' was made by pouring sulfuric acid over saltpeter. The reaction of quicksilver in nitric acid is impressive. A thick red vapor hovers over the surface and bright red crystals precipitate to the bottom. This striking chemical reaction demonstrated the simultaneous separation of mercury into the Above and the Below. Mercury's all-encompassing properties were exhibited in other compounds too. If mercury was heated in a long-necked flask, it oxidized into a highly poisonous white powder (white mercuric oxide) and therapeutic red crystals (red mercuric oxide). Calomel (mercury chloride) was a powerful medicine, unless it was directly exposed to light, in which case it became a deadly poison. When mixed with other metals, liquid mercury tended to unite with them and form hardened amalgams. These and other properties convinced alchemists that mercury transcended both the solid and liquid states, both earth and heaven, both life and death. It symbolized Hermes himself, the guide to the Above and Below."*
"The most characteristic chemical trait of mercury is association. It links itself up in the most unexpected ways. The tendency to form complex compounds is very marked in the case of mercury. It combines with nitrogen and carbon compounds which metals normally won't touch, as well as forming the usual metal salts, and forms complicated 'organometallic' mercury compounds, which catalyse the synthesis of a range of pharmaceutical and other organic, man-made products. It forms explosives (e.g. mercury iodide) which detonate at a mere touch. In amalgamating other metals together, it performs this interlinking function."*
[ocd coming up!][sorry for the later]
"Good afternoon, students. If you could take your seats? We'll be discussing one of the most dangerous and confusing elements in alchemy: mercury."
"No alchemical symbol is so confusing as Mercury. Here are some explanations of this mysterious substance. As sulphur is the symbol for the spirit, mercury is the symbol of the soul. The soul can be described in many ways, and thus mercury has gained a mysterious character in alchemy. It is used for almost everything. It is used to symbolize certain aspects of the alchemical work, but at the same time it is them all. Alchemists often speak about mercury in the form of the god Mercury, whom we encounter in their engravings and paintings. As the god Mercury he is often seen as having qualities that belong both to mercury and to sulfur."*
She smiled at the assembled.
"Called quicksilver by the ancients, it is a liquid metal that could be found weeping through cracks in certain rocks or accumulating in small puddles in mountain grottoes. It was also obtained by roasting cinnabar (mercury sulfide). The shiny metal would seep from the rocks and drip down into the ashes, from which it was later collected. The early alchemists made red mercuric oxide by heating quicksilver in a solution of nitric acid. The acid, which later alchemists called 'aqua fortis,' was made by pouring sulfuric acid over saltpeter. The reaction of quicksilver in nitric acid is impressive. A thick red vapor hovers over the surface and bright red crystals precipitate to the bottom. This striking chemical reaction demonstrated the simultaneous separation of mercury into the Above and the Below. Mercury's all-encompassing properties were exhibited in other compounds too. If mercury was heated in a long-necked flask, it oxidized into a highly poisonous white powder (white mercuric oxide) and therapeutic red crystals (red mercuric oxide). Calomel (mercury chloride) was a powerful medicine, unless it was directly exposed to light, in which case it became a deadly poison. When mixed with other metals, liquid mercury tended to unite with them and form hardened amalgams. These and other properties convinced alchemists that mercury transcended both the solid and liquid states, both earth and heaven, both life and death. It symbolized Hermes himself, the guide to the Above and Below."*
"The most characteristic chemical trait of mercury is association. It links itself up in the most unexpected ways. The tendency to form complex compounds is very marked in the case of mercury. It combines with nitrogen and carbon compounds which metals normally won't touch, as well as forming the usual metal salts, and forms complicated 'organometallic' mercury compounds, which catalyse the synthesis of a range of pharmaceutical and other organic, man-made products. It forms explosives (e.g. mercury iodide) which detonate at a mere touch. In amalgamating other metals together, it performs this interlinking function."*
[ocd
Re: Lab Work