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 624 CALOMARDE CALOMEL idols are placed on a kind of altar made of bags, coffers, and horse equipage. Their cos- tume consists of a long caftan, a short jacket, trousers, and hoots. Their arms are bows and arrows, scimetars, and lances ; they rarely use guns, although gunpowder has been known to them from time immemorial. Divorce is for- bidden by law, but usage allows a man to send away his wife. At eight years of age the boys are sent to the priest, who teaches them to read and write. They marry early, the males at 15, the females at 13. The marriage cere- mony consists in the couple holding a shoulder of mutton wrapped in a cloth, and pledging their troth before the idols. They are ex- tremely superstitious, and will never enter upon any important transaction without pre- viously consulting a priest. They are not defi- cient in intelligence, have a strong memory and great keenness of the senses, especially that of sight. They do not reckon from any fixed date, but count by cycles of 12 years, to which they give the name of some animal. The year is composed of 13 months, each of which also bears the name of some animal. CALOMARDE, Francisco Taden, count de, a Span- ish statesman, born at Villel in Aragon about 1775, died in Toulouse, France, in June, 1842. He was employed in the office of the minister of justice, and was made chief of this depart- ment during the time when the central junta, in order to avoid the armies of Napoleon, sat at Seville, and afterward at Cadiz. In 1814, on the return of Ferdinand VII., Calomarde was made chief secretary for the Indies. Here he was convicted of bribery, and banished to Toledo, and afterward to Pamplona. In 1823 he wns made secretary to the regency, and sub- sequently minister of justice. He organized the corps of royalist volunteers, recalled the Jesuits, reopened the convents, and closed the universities. In 1832, when Ferdinand was recovering from a dangerous illness, but linger- ed in a semi-idiotic condition, Calomarde ex- torted from him his signature to an act by which he reestablished the Salic law of succes- sion in favor of Don Carlos. When Ferdinand revealed this fraudulent proceeding, Calomarde was banished to his seat in Aragon, and only escaped imprisonment by fleeing to France, where he passed the rest of his days in ob- scurity. CALOMEL. Mercury combines with chlorine in two proportions, forming the subchloride or calomel, and the bichloride or corrosive sub- limate, the one consisting of one equivalent of chlorine and two of mercury, HgsCl, and the other of one equivalent of chlorine and one of mercury, HgCl. The name calomel is prob- ably derived from the Greek words naMf, fair, and /i&af, black ; a black mixture being pro- duced in the process of preparing it by rubbing mercury with corrosive sublimate, and this, when subjected to heat, yielding the white sub- limate calomel. It occurs as an ore of mer- cury in the quicksilver mines of Idria in Car- niola, Almaden in Spain, and other localities. It is in the form of a crystalline sublimation, coating other substances, and of granular structure. It is also crystallized in quadran- gular prisms, of yellowish gray and ash-gray colors. Its hardness is 1 to 2, and specific grav- ity. 6 '482. As prepared for medicinal pur- poses, calomel is either obtained as a powder by precipitation, or reduced to a powdered state from the crystalline cake obtained by sub- limation. It is a substance without taste or smell, insoluble in water, ether, and alcohol, and becomes black by exposure, without under- going chemical change. For this reason it is necessary to keep it protected from the light. It requires a higher temperature than corrosive sublimate to volatilize it, and in the subli- mation a portion is converted into mercury and the bichloride. By its entirely subliming when pure, non-volatile substances that may have been mixed with it, such as salts of lime, barytes, or lead, may be detected. As calomel is liable to be contaminated with corrosive sublimate, by which mixture it may produce the most dangerous consequences, it is espe- cially important to test it for this salt. A buff color is an indication of freedom from cor- rosive sublimate, but the very purest calomel, as that called Jewell's, is perfectly white. If calomel is washed in warm distilled water, and a white precipitate should fall on the addition of ammonia, this indicates the presence of cor- rosive sublimate. Caustic potash may also be used instead of ammonia, and will give when corrosive sublimate is present a yellow pre- cipitate. Various processes are given in the pharmacopoeias for this preparation. The most common method is by sublimation. This may be done by mixing four parts of corrosive sub- limate with three parts of mercury, and rub- bing them together nntil the metallic globules entirely disappear, and then subliming. The product should be powdered and washed with boiling water to free it from corrosive subli- mate. The process of the " United States Pharmacoposia " is as follows : " Take of mer- cury 4 Ibs., sulphuric acid 3 Ibs., chloride of sodium H Ib-t distilled water a sufficient quan- tity. Boil 2 Ibs. of the mercury with the sul- phuric acid until a dry, white mass is left. Rub this, when cold, with the remainder of the mercury in an earthenware mortar, until they are thoroughly mixed; then add the chloride of sodium, and rub it with the other ingredients till all the globules disappear ; after- ward sublime. Reduce the sublimed matter to a very fine powder, and wash it frequently with boiling distilled water, till the washings afford no precipitate upon the addition of solu- tion of ammonia; then dry it." A mode of preparation in the wet way is recommended by Prof. Wheeler in the " Chemical Gazette " of July, 1854. The commercial corrosive sub- limate is dissolved in water heated to 122 F., and sulphurous acid gas, obtained by heating coarse charcoal powder with concentrated