NICHOLSON 



5736 



NICKEL 



J. S. Nicholson, 

 British economist 



Russell 



Nicholson, JOSEPH SHIELD (b. 

 1850). British economist. Born at 

 Wrawby, Lines., Nov. 9, 1850, he 

 was educated 

 at Edinburgh 

 University, 

 Trinity College, 

 Cambridge,and 

 Heidelberg. 

 After being a 

 tutor at Cam- 

 bridge, he was 

 elected pro- 

 fessor of poli- 

 tical economy 

 at Edinburgh 

 in 1880, and made himself one of 

 the foremost exponents of the 

 orthodox political economy. His 

 books include Principles of Political 

 Economy, 1893-1901 ; Elements of 

 Political Economy, 1903 ; War 

 Finance, 1919; and The Revival 

 of Marxism, 1920. He published 

 also several romances, including A 

 Dreamer of Dreams, 1889. 



Nicholson, SYDNEY HUGO (b. 

 1875). British organist. Born Feb. 

 9, 1875, a son of Sir Charles Nichol- 

 son, Bart., he 

 was educated 

 at Rugby and 

 New College, 

 Oxford. Having 

 taken a musical 

 degree, he be- 

 came, in 1898, 

 organist of the 

 parish church 

 at Barnet. 

 After experi- 

 ence at Eton, he was appointed, 

 in 1908, organist of Manchester 

 Cathedral, and in 1918 he succeeded 

 Bridge at Westminster Abbey. His 

 works include British Songs for 

 British Boys, cantatas, etc. 



Nicholson, WILLIAM (b. 1872). 

 British painter. Born and edu- 

 cated at Newark-on-Trent, he de 

 rives his art from Whistler and 

 the Glasgow school. In early life 

 he was much associated with W. E. 

 Henley, whose portrait he painted. 

 Both in etching and in colour work, 

 he established a reputation for 

 originality and daring. His works 

 include La Belle Chauffeuse and 

 other notable portraits. 



Nicias (d. 413 B.C.). Athenian 

 statesman and general during the 

 Peloponnesian War. In opposition 

 to the democratic party, he strongly 

 advocated bringing the war to an 

 end while favourable peace terms 

 could be obtained, and took a 

 leading part in negotiating the 

 short-lived peace of 421 B.O. 

 Having already achieved several 

 military successes, he was chosen 

 chief commander of the expedition 

 to Sicily in 415 B.C., though person- 

 ally opposed to it. At first he met 

 with some success, but the arrival 



S. H. Nicholson, 

 British organist 



of the Spartan Gylippus changed 

 the situation, and though rein- 

 forced by Demosthenes, Nicias was 

 defeated both by sea and by land. 

 The Athenian force was obliged to 

 surrender, and Nicias and Demos- 

 thenes were put to death. See 

 Peloponnesian War ; Syracuse. 



Nickel. Elementary metal. Its 

 chemical symbol is Ni ; atomic 

 weight, 58'6; specific gravity, 8'35 

 cast, 8'80 to 8-96 rolled; melting 

 point variously given from 1,450C. 

 (2,642 F. ) to 1,660 C. (2,912 F. ). 

 In colour it is white with a slightly 

 yellowish tinge, and easily takes a 

 brilliant polish. It is one of the 

 hardest and least fusible of metals, 

 ductile, malleable, and tenacious. 



In tensile strength nickel sur- 

 passes iron ; specimens carrying a 

 minute proportion of magnesium 

 have shown a tensile strength of 

 over 38 tons to the sq. in. It may 

 be hammered, rolled, and drawn ; 

 sheets have been made of it less than 

 1 /1000th of an inch in thickness. 

 It is slightly magnetic, is resistant 

 to ordinary atmospheric influ- 

 ences, and little affected by hydro- 

 chloric or sulphuric acids in the 

 cold, though readily attacked by 

 dilute nitric acid and by aqua regia. 

 It is weldable at a white heat, and 

 may be readily welded to iron and 

 certain alloys. 



Ores of Nickel 



Until recent years the most im- 

 portant ores of the metal were kup- 

 fernickel or arsenical nickel, carry- 

 ing, when pure, about 44 p.c. nickel 

 with 56 p.c. arsenic, occurring in 

 Germany, Austria, France, and to 

 a small extent in Cornwall and in 

 Scotland ; chloanthite or white 

 nickel ore, having about 28 p.c. 

 nickel and 70 p.c. arsenic with 

 small proportions of cobalt or iron 

 at times, while in other cases 

 cobalt is associated in the mineral 

 which approaches to smaltine ; 

 nickel glance or gersdorffite, or 

 nickel arsenical glance, carrying 28 

 to 30 p.c. nickel with arsenic and 

 sulphur, found in the Harz Mts., 

 Sweden, etc. ; breithauptite or 

 nickel antimonide, carrying 25 to 

 30 p.c. nickel, found in Nassau, 

 Germany ; and nickel pyrites, hair 

 nickel, or millerite, occurring rarely 

 in Bohemia, Saxony, and Cornwall, 

 but in more important quantities 

 in Pennsylvania, Arkansas, U.S.A., 

 and Sudbury in Canada. Other 

 minerals of nickel are ullmanite, 

 annabergite, iron and nickel py 

 rites ; while certain ores of other 

 metals, particularly copper and 

 cobalt, contain appreciable quan- 

 tities of nickel. In 1863 an impor- 

 tant ore of nickel, a nickel and 

 magnesium silicate, was discovered 

 by Francis Gamier in New Cale- 

 donia and was named garnierite, 



For many years garnierite was 

 the most important source of the 

 metal, and is still the second, but 

 more recent discoveries at Sud- 

 bury, in Ontario, Canada, have 

 resulted in the latter district be- 

 coming by far the largest pro- 

 ducer of nickel. Another district 

 of Ontario, Cobalt, about 150 m. 

 N. of Sudbury, also produces a 

 considerable quantity of nickel. 

 Methods of Extraction 



Nickel was formerly extracted 

 from its ores by first concentrating 

 the metal> where arsenic was pre- 

 sent, in a speiss, i.e. the compound 

 of arsenic and nickel which is 

 formed when an arsenical ore is 

 partly smelted ; or, where arsenic 

 was not present, in some other in- 

 termediate product of a smelting 

 process as in copper matte or 

 blister copper, in the case of cop- 

 per ores ; and then obtaining the 

 nickel either by chemical solution 

 followed by precipitation, or by 

 smelting the speiss or matte with 

 carbon in a reverberatory furnace 

 or in crucibles. 



The Sudbury ore is chiefly a 

 compound of sulphur, iron, nickel, 

 and copper in a matrix of gneiss, 

 and is technically described as a 

 nickeliferous pyrrhotine. Two 

 processes, the Orford and the 

 Mond, are in extensive use for the 

 extraction of the nickel. In both 

 the ore is first roasted to remove 

 sulphur down to not more than 

 7 p c., after which it is, in one sys- 

 tem, smelted with flux and coke in 

 a water- jacketed blast-furnace, 

 yielding a matte containing the 

 concentrated metals and a slag 

 which is thrown away. The matte 

 is treated in a basic converter by 

 which most of the remaining sul- 

 phur is removed together with iron, 

 and the nickel and copper oxidised, 

 the final product containing from 

 50 to 65 p.c. nickel and 25 to 28 

 p.c. copper. In the process in- 

 vented by Mond the matte, as 

 received from Canada, is treated 

 with water gas at a moderately 

 high temperature by which the 

 nickel itself is converted into a gas, 

 nickel carbonyl, which upon treat- 

 ment in a separate vessel by gas 

 again at a still higher temperature 

 is decomposed, and the nickel 

 thrown down in the metallic state. 



An electrolytic process for the 

 extraction of the nickel from the 

 ore, known as the Hybinette pro- 

 cess, has also been used. 



The first important industrial 

 use to which nickel was put was the 

 plating of other metals, and this is 

 still one of the purposes to which 

 it is largely applied. German 

 silver (q.v. ), argentan, or nickel 

 silver, is an important alloy of this 

 metal. Alloys of copper and nickel 



