Page:Lavoisier-ElementsOfChemistry.pdf/188

 men batshort. This kind of iron must be considered as an alloy, or mixture of pure iron, which is almost infusible, with a small portion of some other metal which fuses in a much lower degree of heat. So long as this allow remains cold, and both metals are in the solid state, the mixture is malleable; bur, if heated to a sufficient degree to liquify the more fusible metal, the particles of the liquid metal which are interposed between the particles of the metal remaining solid, must destroy their continuity, and occasion the alloy to become brittle. The alloys of mercury, with the other metals, have usually been called amalgams, and we see no inconvenience from continuing the use of that ter.

Sulphur, phosphorus, and charcoal, readily unite with metals. Combinations of Sulphur with metals are usually named pyrites. Their combinations with phosphorus and charcoal are either not yet named, or have received new names only of late; so that we have not scrupled to change then according to our principles. The combinations of metal and sulfur we call sulphurets, those formed with charcoal carburets. These denominations are extended to all the combinations into which the above three substance enter, without being previously oxygenated.