I 



On the Comlination of Antimony w'lih Tin. 239 



The liquor concreted in a mass, and did not admit of my 

 obtaining the salt of tin by itself j and even the separation 

 was far from being exact. I tried also, but always without 

 effect, to volatilize the antimony, by heating the alloy 

 strongly in close vessels. Finally, T treated the alloy with 

 nitro-muriatic acid, and I did it in such a manner that the 

 two muriates were highly oxidated. I distilled them in a 

 retort, taking care to agitate it incessantly in order to avoid 

 the boiling over, particularly at the end of the operation. 

 I urged the fire even until the bottom of the retort was red, 

 and I obtained sensibly all the muriate of tin. The muriatq 

 of antimony, which when highly oxidated is not volatile, 

 remained in the retort. A very small quantity of this salt 

 alone had passed into the receiver. The muriate of tin also 

 is scarcely troubled by means of water. Although this pro- 

 cess was perhaps not very rigorous, in order to separate the 

 two oxides of tin and antimony, I look upon it as the best 

 hitherto employed, and I consider it good enough to indi- 

 cate how many centiemes of tin are contained in antimony, 

 or vice versa. 



The consequences which may be drawn from this new 

 fact, important enough to merit the attention of chemists, 

 are evident. Is it well ascertained that the mines of anti- 

 mony do not contain tin, and vice versa P Certainly not, 

 because the methods of analysis hitherto practised to separate 

 these two metals have been inexact. Already have I searched 

 for tin in sulphuret of antimony, and I never discovered a 

 single trace of it ; but I have not yet analysed any other ores 

 of antimony, nor of tin- It is a labour which appears to 

 me very useful to make, and which perhaps would furnish 

 interesting results. 



XLIII. Ahidg. 



