200 G.L. Becker—Solutions of Cinnabar, Gold, ete. 
The waters of Steamboat Springs are now depositing gold, 
probably in the metallic state; sulphides of arsenic, antimony 
and mercury; sulphides or sulpho-salts of silver, lead, copper 
and zinc; iron oxide and possibly also iron sulphides; manga- 
nese, nickel and cobalt compounds, with a variety of earthy 
minerals. The sulphides which are most abundant in the 
deposits are found in solution in the water itself, while the 
remaining metallic compounds occur in deposits from springs 
now active, or which have been active within a few years. 
These springs are thus actually adding to the ore deposit of the 
locality, which has been worked for quicksilver in former years 
and would again be exploited were the price of this metal to 
return to the figure at which it stood a few years since. AtSul- 
phur Bank also there is reason to suppose that ore deposition is 
still in progress, though the opportunities for determining this 
point are greatly inferior to those | presented at Steamboat 
Springs. The waters of the two localities are closely analogous. 
Both contain sodium carbonate, sodium chloride, sulphur in one 
or more forms and borax as principal constituents, and both are 
extremely hot, those at Steamboat Springs in some cases reach- 
ing the boiling point. In attempting to determine in what 
forms the ores enumerated can be held in solution in such 
waters, it is manifestly expedient to begin by studying the sim- 
plest possible solutions of the sulphides and particularly of 
cinnabar.* g 
Solubility of HeS in mixtures of Na*S and NaOH.—A series of 
experiments were made in my laboratory with a view of testing 
* Previous investigation.—The solubility of mercuric sulphide in alkaline com- 
pounds containing sulphur has long been recognized by experimental and indus- 
‘rial chemists. This fact is the foundation of the methods of preparation of 
vermilion in the wet way, first described by G. 8. C. Kirchoff in 1799 (Scheerer’s 
Allgem. Journ, der Chem., vol. ii, p. 290), In 1829, C. Brunner (Pogg. Ann., vol. 
xv, p. 593) discovered the double soluble salt HgS, K°S,+5H?O. Later Dr. 
Rheinhardt Weber (Poge. Ann., 1856, vol. xevii, p. 76), reéxamined the properties 
and formation of this salt, which he found could exist only in the presence of free 
caustic alkali. In opposition to Prof. Stein, Dr. Weber is extremely positive in _ 
his statements that mercuric sulphide is entirely insoluble either in the simple 
sulphides of sodium and potassium, or in the sulphydrates of these metals, except- 
ing in the presence of free hydrates. Dr. Weber’s solvent was not, as he evi- 
dently supposes, a mixture of hydrate and sulphydrate but of simple sulphide and 
sulphydrate. : 
In 1864, Mr. C. T. Barfoed (Journ. fir prakt. Chemie, 1864, vol. xciil, p. 230) 
investigated the behavior of mercuric sulphide to sodium sulphides. He, like Dr. 
Weber, found the metallic sulphide wholly insoluble in the sulphydrate, but solu- 
ble in the simple sulphide, and in mixtures of the latter either with the sulphy- 
drate or with the hydrate. He insists that the necessary and sufficient condition 
for the solubility of mercuric sulphide is the presence of sodic monosulphide. 
The assertion is frequently made in chemical writings (for example Graham- 
Otto, 5th Ed., part 3, vol. ii, p. 1119) in spite of the result obtained by Weber and 
by Barfoed that mercuric sulphide is soluble in sodic sulphydrate. In 1876, Mr. M. 
C. Méhu (Russian Journ. of Pharm., reported in Jahresbericht der Chemie, 1876, p. 
282), examined the soluble crystalline mercury-sodium salt corresponding to Brun- 
