494- Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



So that this salt dried at 212° would contain 22*045 of barytes 

 72*772 of purpuric acid, and 5-83 of water; and dried at common 

 temperatures, barytes 19*98, purpuric acid 65*94 and water 14'08. 

 — L'Instiiut, No. 304. 



ACTION OF ANTIMONY ON BICHLORIDE OF MERCURY. 



M. Capitaine has examined the action of these substances on each 

 other. When one part of commercial antimony and three parts of 

 bichloride of mercury are heated together in a retort with its pro- 

 per appendages, the first portions of chloride of antimony which 

 distil are of a reddish brown colour ; and the adopter is lined with the 

 same substance which discolours the first products ; soon afterwards 

 the chloride of antimony distils colourless and perfectly pure. When 

 the operation is finished, there is found in the retort on the revived 

 mercury, a blackish substance ; if this be heated, it yields mercury, 

 a little butter of antimony, and towards the end it yields reddish 

 yellow vapours, which condense into a solid of the same colour, and 

 which it is impossible not to recognise as arseniuretted chloride of 

 mercury. It has the appearance and all the chemical characters of 

 this compound : when treated with boiling water, it yields a liquor 

 containing hydrochloric and arsenious acid, and leaves a black residue, 

 which put on a red-hot coal is volatilized, emitting an alliaceous smell. 



If the chloride of antimony obtained be kept in fusion for some 

 time, all the brown matter which discolours it is deposited and readily 

 separated. It contains metallic mercury, and also the compound of 

 protochloride of mercury and of arsenic. 



The chloride of antimony may be obtained by decantation, but it 

 is better to redistil it ; the small portion of protochloride of mercury 

 which it may contain, attaches itself to the neck of the retort. It is 

 then entirely free from arsenic; the antimony extracted from it 

 yields completely inodorous vapours. 



These experiments show, what was previously known, that with 

 antimony containing- arsenic, chloride of antimony may be obtained 

 quite pure ; but they also show what becomes of the arsenic ; they 

 prove that, combined with the protochloride of mercury^, it remains 

 in the distilling apparatus, and that any portion of it which the chlo- 

 ride of antimony may contain may be separated by rest or redistil- 

 lation. 



It is to be observed, as a very important circumstance, that this 

 facility of preparing chloride of antimony with arsenial antimony 

 happens only when the proportions of antimony and bichloride of 

 mercury mentioned in diflferent authors are employed. These are 

 one of antimony and three of the bichloride ; they are equivalent 

 to one atom of antimony, to a little less than one and a half of bi- 

 chloride ; there is consequently an excess of antimony : if an excess 

 of bichloride were used, the first product would be white, but would 

 contain chloride of arsenic. 



When antimony free from arsenic is made to act u])on bichloride 

 of mercury, the first product is not of a reddish brown colour, but 

 merely greyish, on account of a little very finely divided mercury 

 which passes over with it. — Journal de Pharmacie, Sept. 1839. 



