Silver Penny Mall

Mercury?Spain?s ?Liquid Silver? Bonanza

HAVE you checked the temperature lately?
If so, very possibly you consulted a
mercury thermometer. Perhaps you
wondered where the mercury came from.
The source could well have been the
Almad?n mine in Spain, where the world?s
richest mercury deposit is found. More
than a quarter of the world?s mercury
production comes from this seam.

?Quicksilver? in English, Quecksilber in
German, vif argent in French, azogue in
Spanish and hydrargyros in Greek?all are
names for mercury?that elusive,
slippery, silver-colored, ?live? or
?quick? liquid metal. In the modern
world, mercury has more than 3,000 uses.
How is it obtained?

Geologists say that eight elements form
more than 98.5 percent of the earth?s
crust, and that the remaining 95 or
more, including mercury, constitute a
mere 1.5 percent of the total.
Consequently, mercury is not easy to
find.

Mercury in Its Natural State

During the formation of the earth,
mercury was one of the thermal liquids
that pushed up to fill the cracks and
fissures of certain parts of the earth?s
crust. In some cases, it remained as
pockets of liquid mercury, but in the
majority of cases it combined with
sulfur to form mercuric sulfide or
cinnabar. The rock that contains this
mineral has a reddish hue. On closer
examination, it has a speckled
appearance. Those red speckles contain
the precious mercury, which is separated
from the ore by the slow process of
mining the rock, crushing it, roasting
it and distilling and condensing the
resultant vapor, then, by filtration or
agitation, separating from the
condensate the hydrargyrum (from the
Greek word meaning ?liquid silver?).
Today we call it ?mercury,? a name that
was applied by the alchemists in the
sixth century C.E.

When did man first discover mercury? One
source says that mercury has been found
in Egyptian tombs dated as early as
1500?B.C.E. We can find definite
reference to the metal in the writings
of Theophrastus (a disciple of
Aristotle), who, about 300?B.C.E.,
described how ?liquid silver? was
prepared by a simple process of pounding
cinnabar stone together with vinegar in
a copper vessel. Actually, the pounding
served to separate small quantities of
free mercury, but did not liberate the
mercury that was in compound form.

Pliny the Elder reported, about 50?C.E.,
that each year some 5,000 kilograms
(11,000 pounds; 5 metric tons) of
cinnabar were taken from Sisapo in Spain
(possibly the area known today as
Almad?n) and were transported to Rome,
where cinnabar was used as vermilion
pigment. The mercury was used to recover
the ?noble? metal, gold, as well as
being used with gold in a gilding
process.

At the beginning of the eighth century
C.E., the Arab invasion of the Iberian
peninsula began. This Arab and Moslem
occupation lasted for eight centuries.
During this period, the Arabs encouraged
the exploitation of the Almad?n mercury
mines. As a result, much of the
present-day Spanish vocabulary that has
to do with mercury mining springs from
the Arabic. For example, even the full
name of the town, Almad?n del Azogue, is
derived from the Arabic words al-ma2din
(the mine) and az-za?kq (the mercury),
or The Mine of the Mercury. The Spanish
word for the condensation chamber that
is used to obtain the mercury is aludel,
from the Arabic al-?utal, which refers
to the receptacle that was used for
condensing the mercury vapor into
liquid. The old furnaces that were used
in Almad?n were called jabecas, derived
from the Arabic sab+ka, or ingot.
Similarly, the men employed to construct
the ovens were alba?iles, from al-bann
,
the bricklayer or builder, or were
alarifes, from al-2ar+f, the teacher or
skillful one.

The Spanish king Alfonso VII recaptured
Almad?n in the year 1151?C.E., and
during the following centuries the
Spanish crown ceded the mine for private
exploitation. In the 20th century the
direction of the mine was put in the
hands of an administrative council that
has progressively modernized the mine, a
process that continues to this day.

Distillation Methods Through the
Centuries

The primitive methods for obtaining
mercury were far from efficient, as is
shown by the fact that in the 17th
century workmen were able to feed the
new Bustamante furnaces with burned
stone that had been thrown out after use
in the Arab jabecas, or ovens, and were
still able to get appreciable quantities
of mercury. The first Bustamante furnace
was installed in 1646. In two years,
nine more of these were built, and
eventually 16 were in operation. This
boosted mercury production from 2,527
quintales, or hundredweight, in 1646 to
an annual production of 7,000
hundredweight in 1776.

Uses of Mercury

As the centuries rolled by, the uses for
mercury multiplied. In the 16th century,
Paracelsus, a Swiss-born alchemist and
physician, employed mercury in the
treatment of syphilis. In 1558,
Bartolom? de Medina improved the method
for extracting silver by a process that
involved the use of mercury. The weather
barometer was invented in 1643 by the
Italian physicist Torricelli, who used a
column of mercury to determine the
atmospheric pressure. The thermometer
with which the doctor or nurse checks
your temperature was invented in 1720 by
the German scientist Gabriel Fahrenheit,
who calibrated the tube containing the
expanding column of mercury, making 180
divisions between the freezing and
boiling points of water.

Another and less peaceful use for
mercury was invented after E. C. Howard
discovered mercuric fulminate, which was
used until the 1960?s to detonate
explosives. The list of uses has
snowballed in our 20th century to
include agricultural and industrial
fungicides, electric switches and
mercury batteries, to name only a few.
Mercury in vapor form serves in
ultraviolet lamps, and in mercury lamps
that light the highways. In some cases,
mercury vapor is used instead of steam
for power generation. This versatile
metal has also been used in dental
fillings as an amalgam with a silver and
tin alloy. It does not appear to be
poisonous when so used.

Mercury?Friend or Foe?

This is a legitimate question, for in
the last 20 years man has learned the
hard way that mercury is a servant that
has to be strictly controlled. In many
countries, including Japan, Sweden, the
United States and Canada, evidence has
accumulated establishing the fact that
mercury in certain forms is a poison
that affects both human life and animal
life.

Investigations have revealed abnormal
amounts of mercuric compounds in certain
fish and game birds. These excesses have
been traced to industrial plants that
have released mercury along with other
waste products, and also to fungicides
using methyl mercury. This compound,
entering into the food chain, produces
catastrophic effects.

Methyl mercury is especially dangerous
to pregnant women, since it tends to
accumulate in the fetus, causing brain
damage to the unborn baby. In New
Mexico, U.S.A., in 1969, a family was
poisoned by eating pork from a hog that
had been fed on grain treated with
methyl mercury. Three children were
severely crippled, and the fourth,
poisoned while in the womb, was born
blind and retarded. In the area of the
Japanese city of Minamata, mercury
poisoning reached epidemic proportions
before the doctors finally tracked down
the culprit?methyl mercury that had
belched out of the effluent pipe of a
nearby factory, contaminating the fish,
which was a main local source of food.

HAVE you checked the temperature lately? If so, very
possibly you consulted a mercury thermometer. Perhaps you
wondered where the mercury came from. The source could well
have been the Almad?n mine in Spain, where the world?s
richest mercury deposit is found. More than a quarter of the
world?s mercury production comes from this seam.

Technorati Tags : mercury almad century silver