The tips this month will change in nature a little. The fun part of how and where to look for gold will take a rest. Instead I want to discuss mercury safety. Although somewhat dry, I feel the topic is very important due to the ability of mercury to severely injure.

    First the upside: Mercury is used to "amalgamate" extremely fine gold particles thus agglomerating them together into masses large enough to easily manipulate. The touching of mercury and a clean gold particle will get the job of amalgamation done. The process of amalgamation is a process that involves both the coating of gold with mercury, and also the actual dissolving of a very thin surface layer of gold by the mercury. I once measured and calculated that 100 ounces of gold in mercury for a month, at room temperature, would have one ounce of gold actually dissolve. The gold being in pennyweight sized nuggets. ( As an aside, if you don’t want your nicer nuggets to have that etched look, don’t let them stay amalgamated for any length of time.)

    The downside: Mercury is extremely poisonous. The poisoning can come in several ways and forms. Some of the most common: Inhaling mercury fumes. Remember that Hg is a liquid at room temperature, and as such will also evaporate into your breathable air, just like water will. Never ever store mercury open to the air indoors or at all. Keep tightly stoppered and preferably with water on top of the stored mercury. A chilling example of the volatility of Hg can be seen as follows. On a windless dusk set up this experiment outdoors. Place a small amount of dry mercury in a shallow dish. Stand a white paper just behind dish. Take an ultraviolet light and shine light across dish onto paper. You will see mercury fumes rising from the dish. It looks exactly like cigarette smoke rising from an ashtray. What you are actually seeing is the Hg’s fume shadow, blocking the UV light. Another thought, consider how doctors apply medication through transdermal patches. Everything from seasick patches to painkillers. Indeed mercury can be absorbed through the skin. Absolutely keep mercury away from skin. Keep away from gold wedding rings, or you will have a transdermal mercury patch for your finger. As bad as getting elemental metal mercury into your body, with its damage to nervous systems hair , teeth, liver, etc, getting mercury in the form of mercury compounds is a lot worse. Mercuric nitrate, the byproduct of removing mercury from gold with nitric acid, gets into tissue and stays in a cumulative dose doing damage to all of the above body systems. The body has a very hard time getting rid of the compounds of mercury. Mercuric nitrate is a reddish gas, stay way away from it. Do not dump mercury or its compounds into the soil. They never dissipate. In fact, in time the mercury "methylates" into something worse for health yet. Methylated mercury gets into the food chain, most notably fish, and is a human health hazard. If you have a desire to get mercury off of gold using a retort, there are two places where you can come to grief. Both at the end of the process. If you know, the retorting process involves heating mercury in an airtight crucible, with the only escape of the mercury fumes up and out through a tube that runs through a water cooled condensing jacket. The tip of the discharge tube needs to be just above a water filled container. NOT IN IT. When the heat is shut off and the tube tip extends into water, what happens is the cooling retort sucks water up into the still red hot crucible. The resulting steam explosion can shatter the cast iron crucible and turn it into shrapnel. Lastly, if you are still alive at this point, and you want to crack the lid off the cool retort to get the gold, be aware that very often there is a discharge of mercury rich vapor that escapes the chamber upon opening. Keep face away. And do like the prez did, don’t inhale.