Important: Safety Warning
This page describes trade processes that use dangerously toxic materials such as cyanide solutions, mercury amalgams, or strong acids. These processes require training, equipment, and precautions far beyond what the text describes.
This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon.
Vermilia
in zoölogy, a genus of Serpulide, in which the tortuous shell or sheath is attached to some foreign body by its whole length. Found in the seas of Europe. Fossil from the Lower Oölite onward.
VERMILION (sulphide of mercury, formula, Hg, 87; S, 13); exists in the native state as cinnabar, from which this beautiful red pigment is obtained by selecting pure pieces and simply grinding them. It is, however, generally made artificially. By one dry process the first step is to prepare an intimate mixture of 100 parts of mercury and 18 parts of sulphur, which are agitated together in revolving vessels till they have combined.
The powder so obtained is afterward sublimed in specially constructed retorts, and the purest portion condensed on the heads of the retorts is then treated with a VERMONT little caustic potash, and washed with warm water. One of several wet processes in use for making vermilion consists in combining mercury and sulphur by grinding them together in the presence of water, caustic potash being afterward added, and the mixture triturated for some hours at a temperature of 113° F. The product is afterward thoroughly washed. The Chinese have long made beautiful vermilion.