A hiftory

joys of love and wine, horfe-racing, cockfighting, hunting, and other violent pleasures can yield.

§. 4. You know, good Sir, I fuppose, that of metals. there are fix metals, two perfect, and four imperfect. Gold and filver, perfect: the others, copper, tin, lead, and iron. Quickfilver is by fome called a seventh metal: but that I think cannot be, as it is not malleable. Yet it is not to be confounded with the femi-metals, as it differs from the metals no otherwife than by being constantly in fufion; which is occafioned by its aptness to flow with fuch a fmall degree of heat, that be there ever fo little warmth on earth, there is still more than enough to keep mercury in fufion. It must be called then, in my opinion, a metallic body of a particular kind: And the more fo, let me add, as art has not yet found out a way of depriving it wholly of its Phlogifon.

What phlogifon is.

I muft obferve to you, good Sir, in order to be intelligible in what I am faying, that the Phlogiston in metals is the matter of fire as a constituent principle in bodies. It is the element of fire combined with fome other fubftance, which ferves it as a bafis for conftituting a kind of fecondary principle; and it differs from pure fixed fire in these particulars, that it communicates neither heat nor light,

5

light,-it caufes no change, but only renders body apt to fufe by the force of a culinary fire, and it can be conveyed from body to body, with this circumstance, that the body deprived of the phlogiston is greatly altered, as is the body that receives it.

are.

And as to the femi-metals, (which I men- What fetioned) you will be pleased to obferve, that mi-metals they are regulus of antimony, bifmuth, zinc, and regulus of arfenic. They are not malleable, and easily part with their phlogiston. Zinc and bifmuth are free from the poisonous quality: but arfenic is the most violent poifon; especially the fhining cryftalline calx of it, or flowers raifed by the fire, and named white arfenic and regulus of antimony is likewise a poifon; not in its nature, but because it always contains a portion of arfenic in its compofition.

pofition of

Antimony is of a pretty white bright colour, The nature and has the fplendor, opacity, and gravity and comof a metal, but under the hammer crumbles Antimony. to duft. A moderate heat makes it flow, and a violent fire diffipates it into smoke and white vapors. They adhere to cold bodies, and when the farina is collected, we call thefe vapors flowers of antimony.

mony is.

Butter of antimony, good Sir, that wonder- What butful corrofive, is a compound made by diftil-ter of antiling pulverized regulus of antimony, and corrofive fublimate. The production, on operation, is a white matter, thick and scarce

73

fluid,

3

Liver of

fluid, which is the regulus of antimony united with the acid of fea-falt. Here the corrofive fublimate is decompounded, the mercury revivified, and the acid combined with it, quits it to join the regulus of antimony, because its affinity with it is greater.

(Little Ribble, the Chemist, went on, and with difficulty I could refrain from laughing; not on account of the man's talking nonsense, for his discourse was the very reverse of that ; but by reafon of the gripe he had of my arm, the pulls he gave me, if I happened to look another way, and the furprifing eagerness with which he fpoke; which fhewed, that he was chemically ftruck to an amazing degree.)

But liver of antimony, good Sir, is made antimony of equal parts of nitre and antimony. On the mixture's being expofed to the action of fire, a violent detonation enfues, and the deflagrating nitre confumes the fulphur of the antimony, and even a part of its phlogiston. A greyish matter remains after the detonation, and this is what we call liver of antimony. It contains a fixed nitre, a vitriolated tartar, and the reguline part of antimony vitrified.

rates gold

How anti- The principal use the Chemists make of mony fepa- antimony is to feparate gold from the other from other metals. All metals, gold excepted, have a metals. greater affinity with fulphur than the reguline

part

part of antimony. As to gold, it is incapable of contracting any union with fulphur. If therefore I have a mafs compounded of various metals, and want to get the gold out, I melt it with antimony, and as foon as it' flows, every thing in the mafs which is not gold, unites with the fulphur, in or of the antimony, and caufes two feparations, that of the fulphur of antimony from its reguline part, and that of the gold from the metals with which it was mixed: This produces two new combinations. The metals and the fulphur, in fufion, being lighter, rife to the furface; and the gold and the reguline part of antimony being heaviest, the combination of them finks to the bottom. Now the business is to part these two, and to this purpose, I expofe the combination to a degree of fire, capable of diffipating into vapors all the femimetal the mafs contains. The reguline being volatile, goes off by the great heat, and my gold remains pure and fixed in my crucible.

antimonial

As to the antimonial wine, made by the The exceleffence of antimony, that is, by impregnating lence of the most generous white wine, with the mi- wine. nims or lefts of antimony, which the phyficians have found out, it is not the part of a chemift to speak of that; and therefore, I fhall only obferve to you, that it is the best vomit, the best purge, and the best thing for

The na ture of Bismuth.

a fweat, in the world, I will tell you, good Sir, what I heard an eminent Doctor say of it. Affirmo fanctiffime, nihil inde melius, nihil tutius, nihil efficacius, deprehendi unquam, quam tritum illum, ac fimplicem vini automonialis infufum ex vino albo generofo, aromate aliquo ftomachico adjecto. Epotus largiter maximas movit vomitiones, in minuta tantùm quantitate, ad guttas puta viginta, aut triginta, adhibitus fudores elicit benignos; paulo tamen majoræ aleum folvit leniter. Medicamentum, paratu quidem facillimum, at viribus maximum.-And therefore, good Sir, when any thing ails you, let me recommend the antimonial wine to you, Thirty drops will fweat you effectually. About forty or fifty purges in a happy man

ner.

But as to the fecond femi-metal, bismuth, it has almost the fame appearance as regulus of antimony, but of a more dufky caft, inclining fomewhat to red. It requires lefs heat than antimony to flow, and like it, and the other femi-metals, is volatile, by the action of a violent fire, and under the hammer is duft, In fufion, it mixes well with all metals, and whitens them by union, but deftroys their malleability. In flowing, it lofes its phlogifton with its metallic form. And it has a fingular property, which the other femi-metals have not, of attenuating lead fo as to make

it