Mercury

Below is a short sample of the essay Mercury. If you sign up you could be reading the rest of this essay in under two minutes. Registered users should login to view the essay.

Mercury

What Is Mercury? As anyone who's ever broken a thermometer can attest, mercury
is a fascinating substance. It also has an interesting history. Named after the
fleet-footed Roman messenger of the gods, mercury has been used for more than
2,000 years. Mercury ore cinnabar has even been found smeared on Neolithic
skulls. Its first recorded mention is a reference by Aristotle in the fourth
century B.C., a time when the silvery-white, heavy metal was used in religious
ceremonies. Spanish miners used mercury to process gold ore for ancient Rome;
when their mercury supply ran out, gold production dropped and set in motion the
decline of the Roman Empire. Today mercury poses a serious threat, this time
environmental. Human beings around the world cause mercury to enter the
atmosphere primarily when they burn coal or incinerate waste. Studies from
Sweden and Florida suggest that mercury also evaporates from landfills, but only
0.0001 per cent. Groundwater contamination from old dumps is of concern but
combustion is the major path via which mercury pollutes the globe. Mercury
rarely exists in a free state in nature; it's recovered from red mercuric
sulphide in geologically recent volcanic rocks. The world inventory of mined
mercury is estimated at 600,000 tonnes, stored mostly in states of the former
Soviet Union. (Mercury has not been mined in Canada since 1975.) Scientists
e...

The complete article is about 411 words and 1.64 pages long.

To continue reading the complete article, subscribe below and get free instant unlimited access.

Once you have registered for an Account, No refunds can be issued.
Please make sure you look over the site before you purchase an account!!!