JOURNAL 



THE ROYAL INSTITUTION 



OF 



GREAT BRITAIN. 



ON CERTAIN PHENOMENA RESULTING FROM THE 

 ACTION OF MERCURY UPON DIFFERENT METALS. 



BY J. F. DANIELL, F.R.S., AND M.R.I. 



E results of the following experiments on the action of 

 mercury upon different metals may probably be considered 

 interesting; not only on account of the novelty of the facts, 

 which have been hitherto, I believe, unnoticed, but from the 

 relation in which some of them may be found to stand to the 

 laws of molecular attraction. 



EXPERIMENT I. 



A piece of flexible metallic tube, which is composed of an 

 alloy of tin and lead, was partly immersed in mercury con- 

 tained in a wine-glass. In the course of a few days it was exa- 

 mined, and found studded with brilliant metallic crystals, in a 

 line coincident with the level of the fluid. After this exami- 

 nation, it was replaced and left undisturbed for six weeks : at 

 the expiration of which period it was carefully lifted out of the 

 mercury ; and a considerable groupe of well-defined crystals 

 were found loosely adherent to its upper part, and many similar 

 ones floating upon the surface of the mercury. Their form 

 was that of hexahedral plates variously modified ; some of them 

 were above one-tenth of an inch diameter, and their lustre was 

 white and silvery. By placing them in a small inverted cone 

 of paper, perforated at its apex, the fluid mercury drained from 

 VOL. I. OCT. 1830. B 



