Page:Philosophical Transactions - Volume 095.djvu/356

322 There was no difficulty in ascertaining the presence of lead as one of the ingredients of this precipitate, by means of muriatic acid, which dissolved lead and iron and a small quantity of copper. It was equally easy to obtain a larger portion of copper by dilute nitrous acid, with which it formed as usual a blue solution. But when I endeavoured to extract the whole of the copper by a stronger acid, it was evident, from the dark brown colour of the solution, that some other metallic ingredient had also been dissolved. I at first ascribed this colour to iron; but, when I considered that this substance had been more slowly acted upon than copper, I relinquished that hypothesis, and endeavouring to precipitate a portion of it by a clean plate of copper, I obtained a black powder adhering to a surface of platina on which I had placed the solution. As this precipitate was soluble in nitric acid, it evidently consisted neither of gold nor platina; as the solution in that acid was of a red colour, the metal could not be either silver or mercury; and as the precipitation of it by copper excluded the supposition of all other known metals, I had reason to suspect the presence of some new body, but was not fully satisfied of its existence until I attempted the precipitation of it by mercury.

For this purpose I agitated a small quantity of mercury in the nitrous solution previously warmed, and observed the mercury to acquire the consistence of an amalgam. After this amalgam had been exposed to a red heat, there remained a white metal, which could not be fused before the blow pipe. It gave a red solution as before in nitrous add; it was not