New Phenomena in Chemistry. 



175 



gamated. A triple amalgam of mercury, potassium or 

 sodium and "ammonium" (hydrogenium ?) is sometimes 

 useful ; and I have found zinc amalgam, excited with 

 chlorhydric acid, a powerful agent in producing these results. 



And now, before proceeding to describe those pheno- 

 mena of the discovery of which I can find no record, it is 

 advisable to examine into the nature of mercury and its 

 amalgams, and the present state of our knowledge of its 

 compounds. 



Remembering that the fluid mercury with which we are 

 familiar is but the molten substance of a solid, ductile 

 and malleable metal; we arrive at the conclusion that 

 amalgams are simply the alloys of mercury, as metals dis- 

 solved in melted lead would be alloys of lead. Now the 

 alloys of mercury are peculiarly easy to examine ; for even 

 when in the fluid state they do not burn one's fingers, and 

 by analyzing amalgams we are able to discover the condi- 

 tion of the metals contained in them. Having prepared 

 an amalgam of gold and dissolved it in an excess of mer- 

 cury, I treated the fluid amalgam with nitric acid. When 

 the quicksilver had entirely dissolved, there remained a 

 small spheroid of gold, dark upon the surface, and when 

 broken apart under the hammer, exhibiting a radiating 

 crystallization like that of globular iron pyrites. This, and 

 other experiments (which I have not time to describe), 

 appear to prove that a metal when amalgamated is really 

 dissolved ; and it is possible that if the reduction of the 

 amalgam had been less rapid, a well formed crystal of 

 gold might have been obtained. The metals of the second 

 class seem also to be actually dissolved in the mercury. 



Our knowledge of the compounds of mercury, as de- 

 rived from the latest standard works on Chemistry" is, 

 singularly imperfect. St. Clair Deville, the famed chemist 

 of the late French empire, the discoverer of the economic 

 process of aluminum manufacture, asserts that metallic 



