392 ANTIMONY. 



which are often disposed in a handsomely-worked cover or case ; and 

 it is applied to the eye by a small probe of wood, ivory, or silver, which is 

 called meel, while the whole apparatus is named mukJiuly." 



The cases which contain these small bottles are very commonly made 

 of plaited or coloured straws or reeds, split, as in fine basket-work. In 

 Persia the practice of painting the eye is not confined to the females, but 

 is also generally adopted by the men, who carry the prepared powder about 

 with them, in small round ivory boxes of the size and thickness of a 

 florin. Under the Hindoo name of Surmeh or Soorma, native sulphuret of 

 antimony is used in India as a drug. Sulphuret of antimony is also the 

 base of a variety of medicines in our own Pharmacopoeia ; only it is the 

 refined sulphuret, termed crude antimony. 



Crude antimony results from the first process in antimony smelting, 

 which consists of fusing the ore in crucibles at a low heat ; the impurities 

 thereby rising to the surface, and the crude metal either settling in the 

 bottom of the crucible, or passing through a perforation into another 

 crucible or vessel below. It is met with in commerce in the form of 

 conical loaves, possesses a structure highly striated, and has considerable 

 brilliancy : colour, leaden grey ; fracture, splintery. This crude antimony 

 or refined sulphuret is administered as a drug in this country, and is also 

 the original source of all the various medicinal preparations of the metal : 

 as, antimonii vitrum — glass of antimony ; antimonium tartarizatum — tartar 

 emetic ; vinum antimonii tartarizati — antimonial wine ; antimonii sulphu- 

 retum prsecipitatum — precipitated sulphuret of antimony ; pulvis antimoni- 

 alis — antimonial powder ; &c. &c. 



The property of marking or staining paper possessed by the crude 

 antimony has caused its adoption as an ingredient in the manufacture 

 of cheap lead-pencils. For this purpose, the crude antimony is finely 

 powdered, and mixed with a suitable proportion of plumbago ; the whole 

 being afterwards compressed by a patent process into a solid block, or 

 possibly agglutinated with a gummy cement, and then sawn into slabs and 

 strips for the pencils in the usual manner. The name black-lead 

 (plumbum nigrum) has sometimes been given to the sulphuret of antimony, 

 in consequence of its staining property ; and from this circumstance, pos- 

 sibly, arise the misstatements in many Bible commentaries, that the eye 

 pigment of the ancients was an ore of lead. I need scarcely remind the 

 reader that the marks of an inferior pencil containing antimony are per- 

 manent, not being influenced in any way by the application of India 

 rubber. Sulphuret of antimony has, amongst other applications, been 

 employed as a constituent in the manufacture of lucifer-matches : it is also 

 used in pyrotechny. 



It now remains for me to notice the method by which metallic antimony 

 is obtained from the sulphuret, or crude mineral ; and this is effected by 

 melting the crude antimony in crucibles, in conjunction with tin-plate 

 clippings (narrow strips of tinned iron). The sulphur having a stronger 

 affinity for iron, leaves the antimony, and forms with the strips a sul- 



