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On the Comlmaiion of Antimony with Tin. 237 



It was said to be very malleable; but, above all, its ad- 

 mirers boasted of iis inalterability. By its appearance I 

 thought that it contained plenty of tin ; and as the price 

 of it was moderate, I presumed it also contained antimony, 

 and, to a certain degree, zinc or lead also. This was 

 the reason why I treated 100 parts of it with the nitric 

 acid. This portion of it was immediately attacked by a vio- 

 lent eflfervescence, and converted into a white powder. At 

 the end of half an hour's ebullition, after having filtered the 

 liquor, I tried it successively by the potash of coainierce, 

 •the sulphuric acid, and the hydro- sulphurets. 



All these re-agents having indicated that it contained no- 

 thing metallic in solution, I thought it very probable that 

 this alloy was composed of tin and antimony alone. In. 

 order to ascertain this completely, I took the above white 

 powder produced by the nitric acid, and 1 dissolved it in the 

 muriatic acid. I concentrated the solution, and diluted it 

 with water. It produced, as I had previously conjectured, 

 a very abundant precipitate ; but having allowed the liquor 

 to settle a whole day, and having decanted it, I found nO 

 more metallic traces than in the preceding. Ammonia 

 scarcely troubled it at all, and the hydro-sulphuret of potash 

 gave it a slight yellow colour. Although I had performed 

 the operation with much care, I could not at first give credit 

 to this result, it appeared so singular, and it was only by 

 repeating it that I found I was not deceived. What ouo-ht 

 I to conclude from this ? Had I consulted only the known 

 properties of the oxides of antimony and tin, I should have 

 been led to believe that the substance I had examined was 

 nothing but antimony. It was however sensibly malleable, 

 and must therefore have contained another metal. EVery 

 thing led me to believe that this was tin ; and, in fact, I 

 actually formed an alloy with antimony and tin, which en- 

 joyed all the properties of the one above described. Four 

 parts of tin and one of antimony give a very ductile allov- 

 Equal parts of each also give an alloy which possesses still 

 a certain ductility. But if a few cciitiemes of lead enter into 

 the tin, both the above alloys become very brittle. The in- 

 termediate alloys po.-se«s properties relative to the quantities 



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