quicksilver
Hi Geo,
nice to see you in full experimenting mode.. I'm still recovering
About mercury:
I have same memories as max .. playing with heavy droplets - neverending fun.. Actually I live in a mercury mining town with 500 years tradition and 800 km of shafts beneath the city.. until the mine was closed few decades ago.
Mercurialism or quicksilver poisoning is a nasty one, but you have to inhale lots of mercury vapors (eg. near smelting furnace) to get sick, no need to worry if handling half kilo. Evaporation of mercury at room temperatures is slow. Also do not worry about the soil, vegetation or animals..(just do not do it under your vegetables).. Also you do not need to wear any protective masks - geo do not be funny
Some other facts from my memory and city stories..
There are no remedy pills (like selenium) for mercury poisoning - at least any that do anything good. Mild symptoms are: salivation, loss of teeth, shaking - tremor. Will not describe worst symptoms but are quite irreversible.
Paracelsus was first to observe and describe mercury mining and smelting disease, but also prescribed mercury as remedy for syphilis...
New 'baptized' miners usually got secretly drop of mercury in their wine cup .. result is instant diarrhea and lots of mocking...
On some parts of our town you just have to poke a hole in a ground and there are mercury drops, over heavy rains you have pools of mercury in riverbed ..500 years old legacy
Mercury in water pipes is benign and does no harm - do not worry about nearby water supplies, more problematic is ingesting vegetables growing in contaminated soil or just eating lots of tuna fish from Adriatic sea or Japan..
I hope Geo I have calmed you down ...
for all others not having an obsession with quicksilver .. sorry for bothering
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