218 BISMUTH. 
It is nearly ten times heavier than water, and is so brittle 
as readily to break under the hammer. None of the semi- 
metals are so easy to be fused as this; it melts even in the 
jftame of a wax candle, and long before it becomes red hot, and 
has the singular property of expanding as it cools. 
The ores of bismuth chiefly occur in Sweden, Nor- 
way, Germany, France, and England. This metal 
appears f to have been known to the ancients. It was 
confounded by them with tin ; and, even in our own 
manufactories, it is known to the workmen by the name 
of tin-glass. 
It is not of much use in the arts ; but its fusibility 
renders the working of it very simple and easy. It is 
employed in the composition of some of the soft kinds 
.of solder ; and is also used for giving hardness to tin 
and other metals. Amalgamated with mercury it ren- 
ders that metal less fluid; and the addition of it to 
mercury and tin is found useful in the foliating or sil- 
vering of looking-glasses. Some manufacturers use it 
in the composition of pewter; but it is said that this 
ought not to be done, particularly for the formation of 
vessels intended to contain food, as bismuth partakes of 
the noxious properties of lead, and sometimes con- 
tains even arsenic. It is also occasionally employed in 
the fabrication of printers' types. 
A very singular metal is formed by melting together 
eight parts of bismuth, five of lead, and three of tin. 
Tea-spoons formed of this metal surprise all who are 
unacquainted with their nature : they have somewhat 
the appearance of common spoons, but they melt as 
soon as they are put into boiling water. 
Bismuth reduced to powder, mixed with the white 
of eggs and applied to wood, gives it, when gradually 
dried and rubbed with a polisher, the appearance of 
being silvered. If this metal be dissolved in aqua- 
fortis (30), and water be poured into the solution, a white 
powder precipitates, which is an oxide of bismuth, and 
which, after being well washed, is used as a pigment, 
under the name of pearl-white. From its beautiful ap- 
