Antimony cinnabar

The principal red and yellow pigments are Lead chromate chrome yellow, orange and red), zinc chromate zinc or buttercup yellow), barium chromate lemon yellow or yellow ultramarine) various products based on jerric oxide, hydrated (yellow) or anhydrous (red), both natural yellow and red ochres) and artificial Mars yellow, English red, etc.) red oxide oj lead minium or red lead) mercuric sulphide cinnabar, vermilion) antimony oxysulphide antimony cinnabar) cadmium sulphide cadmium yellow) basic lead antimonate Naples yellow). 

An oxysulfid, SbeSsOs, is obtained by the action of a solution of sodium hyposulfite upon SbCl or tartar emetic. It is a flne= red xKJwder, used as a pigment, and called antimony cinnabar or antimony vermilion. 

A powder which burns with a green flame is obtained by the addition of nitrate of baryta to chlorate of potash, nitrate of potash, acetate of copper. A white flame is made by the addition of sulfide of antimony, sulfide of arsenic, camphor. Red by the mixture of lampblack, coal, bone ash, mineral oxide of iron, nitrate of strontia, pumice stone, mica, oxide of cobalt. Blue with ivory, bismuth, alum, zinc, copper sulfate purified of its sea water [sic]. Yellow by amber, carbonate of soda, sulfate of soda, cinnabar. It is necessary in order to make the colors come out well to animate the combustion by adding chlorate of potash.15... 

Cinnabar and vermilion usually contain only small proportions of impurities from the prime materials vermilion may also contain impurities due to the method of preparation, namely, small quantities of metallic mercury, mercuric nitrate and free sulphur. These products are, however, often adulterated with ferric oxide, minium, chrome red, brickdust, gypsum, heavy spar, clay, ammonium chloride, dragon s blood, carmine and artificial organic dyes. Sometimes also arsenic and antimony sulphides are added to modify the colour. 

We ve mentioned two of the commonly used paths for confecting the Philosopher s Stone, that of the Wet Way through lead acetate, and the Dry Way through the Star Regulus of Antimony. The final method we examine is often called the way of the Divine Cinnabar. I saved this for last because it is a dangerous operation requiring the use of the very toxic metallic mercury. The other two methods also present dangers and the use of toxic materials, but mercury is particularly insidious and can quickly contaminate an area which will then be very difficult to clean up. 

Sulfur also occurs in a number of important minerals. Some examples are barite, or barium sulfate (BaS04) celestite, or strontium sulfate (SrS04) cinnabar, or mercury sulfide (HgS) galena, or lead sulfide (PbS) pyrites, or iron sulfide (FeS2) sphalerite, or zinc sulfide (ZnS) and stibnite, or antimony sulfide (Sb2S3). 

Mineral poisons were also well known in the ancient world. In particular, the ores and compounds of arsenic, antimony, copper, mercury, and lead were familiar to many cultures. Pseudo-Dioscorides detailed the poisonous effects of arsenic (meaning sometimes the sulfide, sometimes the white oxide), litharge (red lead or lead oxide), cinnabar (mercuric sulfide), and white lead (lead acetate). Hippocrates, Nicander, Dioscorides, Galen, and Paul of Aegina wrote clinical accounts of lead poisoning, of which there were occasional epidemics, and miners were known to be at risk from the fumes created by smelting processes. 

The alkaline earth group as a whole stands in marked contrast to transition metals and post-transition metals. For example, most of the metals in the periodic table form insoluble precipitates with the sulfide ion (S2), with the result that sulfide ores of transition and post-transition metals are very common in Earths crust. Common examples of metal sulfides include galena (lead sulfide), cinnabar (mercury sulfide), gree-nockite (cadmium sulfide), acanthite (silver sulfide), cobaltite (cobalt arsenic sulfide), sphalerite (ZnS), stibnite (antimony sulfide), several copper sulfides, orpiment and realgar (both forms of arsenic sulfide), and pyrite (iron sulfide). None of the alkaline earths, however, are found as sulfides. 

Beguin gives a diagram showing the reaction in the distillation of corrosive sublimate (mercuric chloride) and stibnite (antimony sulphide), when butter of antimony (antimony trichloride) and cinnabar (mercuric sulphide) are formed ... 

Brandt classed mercury, antimony, bismuth, cobalt, arsenic and zinc as semi-metals, rejecting cinnabar, vitriols, etc., from this class. He considered that true metals solidify from fusion with a convex surface. The semi-metals have a metallic appearance but are brittle under the hammer. He describes metallic zinc spiauter, conterfeth) from the East Indies, Rammelsberg, and Dalecarlia and Rattwick in Sweden, as a semi-metal. Blende is an ore of zinc and white vitriol is a compound of zinc, since it can be prepared by dissolving zinc in sulphuric acid, and if the solution of white vitriol is precipitated with alkali and the precipitate (zinc carbonate) heated with copper and charcoal, brass is produced. 

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