[ 6d6 ] 

 LVIII. Intelligence and Miscellaneous Articles. 



ON A SIMPLE DEVICE FOR THE RECOVERY OF SPILLED MERCURY. 



BY WILL. C. BAKER, M.A., LECTURER ON PHYSICS, SCHOOL 



OF MINING, QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY, KINGSTON, ONTARIO, 



CANADA. 



fXE the common laboratory accidents, few are more annoying 



^ than the spilling of mercury on the floor, especially if there 



be cracks between the boards into which the liquid may run. 



In such cases so much comfort has been experienced, from the use 



of the simple device herein described, that it has been thought 



worth while to suggest it to others. 



A small flask, A, is fitted with a rubber stopper through which 

 pass two short glass tubes. One of these is connected, by a stout 

 rubber tubing, to a water-pump, and the other leads by a short 

 rubber tube, B, to a piece of glass tubing drawn out to a fine 

 nozzle, C. 



The action is obvious : — When the pump is working, if the 

 nozzle be approached to a drop of mercury, the liquid is quicklv 

 sucked into the flask. It is generally best to raise the nozzle 

 from time to time so as to let the mercury in the tube, B, run 

 into the bottle, A. 



As the glass tube, C, may be drawn out as fine as required, 

 there is no difficulty in recovering mercury from cracks in the 

 floor even less than a half! a millimetre wide. Under these 

 circumstances the nozzle often becomes stopped by dust particles 

 and the flow of air ceases. Then it is best to use nozzles drawn 

 out, ten or fifteen centimetres long, and when stopped by dust to 

 break off four or five millimetres of the dust-choked end, thus 

 leaving a free passage for the air. 



Working in this way mercury may be quickly and easily 

 recovered. The dust is separated by a filtration. This method 

 possesses many obvious advantages over the usual way of collecting 

 the mercury with a piece of zinc. 



