46 
Tlie otlicr ores of lead are comparatively rare, and seldom occur in large 
quantities. 
Lead was largely used in former times for roofing houses, making tanks and 
water pipes, but has now been superseded in a large measure by iron, the uses to 
which it is put at the present being the manufacture of shot, which is made of lead 
with 0*5 to 2 per cent, of arsenic; type metal is an alloy 4 parts of lead to 1 of anti¬ 
mony, and sometimes a little tin. Stereo-metal consists of lead, tin, antimony, and 
sometimes bismuth ; fine solder, 2 parts tin to 1 of lead; common solder, equal 
weights of those two metals, and coarse solder, 2 parts lead to 1 of tin ; pewter, 
1 part lead to 4 of tin; Victoria metal, used for teapots, spoons, etc., is a mixture 
of lead, antimony, and bismuth with tin. 
Lead ores have been found to exist in many places in this Colony, but have 
only been worked at Northampton, Roebourne, and Cardup, South of Perth, but 
to no extent except in the first mentioned district. These mines are not now at work, 
owing to the low price of lead, and to the fact that the lead ores of this Colony 
carry so little silver. 
Antimonv. 
Symbol Sb . (Stibium) ; atomic weight , 122; specific gravity , 6'2. 
Antimony has been known from the earliest times, as it was used in the form 
of sulphide by the ancient Greeks to blacken the hair and eyebrows. In colour it 
is a tin white inclined to have a bluish tinge, its hardness is 3*5, it is extremely 
brittle, possessing a strongly crystalline structure. It can be reduced to a powder 
in a mortar. It melts at a temperature of 1150° F., and is slowly but distinctly 
volatile at a white heat. 
Antimony is readily affected by exposure to the air at ordinary tempera¬ 
tures, and is rapidly oxidised when exposed to it in a fused state. It is used in 
the manufacture of type metal alloyed with lead, as stereo-metal with tin and 
lead. It and its salts are also largely used in medicine. It occurs in the native 
state, but is more commonly met with as a sulphide. 
Stxbnite .—Grey Antimony; Sulphide of Antimony.—This ore is mostly found 
in the massive state, and is of lead grey colour, brittle, and slightly sectile, having a 
hardness of 2, and specific gravity of 4’5, and is composed of sulphur, 28'2; 
antimony, 71’8. 
It fuses readily in a candle flame, and is volatilised before the blowpipe 
passing oil in white fumes. 
It occurs at Mallina, about 70 miles to tlie Eastward of Roebourne, associated 
with gold and quartz, also m small quantities in several other parts of this Colony- 
Zinc, 
Symbol , Zn.; atomic weight , 65'2; specific gravity , 6\9. 
Although zinc must have been known from very early times, as it was used in 
the manufacture ot brass, no mention of it, occurs until 1541. It is a soft metal of a 
lead grey colour, and will retain a brilliant surface when cleaned and placed in a drV 
atmosphere at ordinary temperature, but rapidly tarnishes in a damp atmosphere'; 
temperature the metal is brittle, but when heated betleen 248'' and 
4rn°’ t fe v b " th aud ® allea hle, but When the heat k ^creased to 
Zinc'melts aTa temperature of'798°^ 1ml bldls'at'1904°^'^ V* "ifi 
over into water. When stromdv lifted I -l , . F " can be distilled 
flame, producing dense white fumes A zinc t.1-i+ . mins . m $l a greenish white 
