Important: Safety Warning
This page contains instructions involving gunpowder or other explosive or pyrotechnic compositions. Preparing explosives as described has caused severe injuries and deaths, and is illegal in most places.
In addition, 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.
Chlorine
An elementary gas, of a yellowish green color, a pungent, suffocating odor, and an astringent taste. Its specific gravity is 2.47. Under a pressure of 4 water. (Sce No. 4031.) Should white fumes atmospheres it condenses into a yellow limpid appear within the retort after the evolution of the gas has commenced, the heat should be lowered, as, when heated to about 600°, nitrate of ammonia explodes with violence. Nitrous oxide may also be made in the same way from crystallized nitrate of ammonia, or by exposing nitric oxide for some days over iron filings, but it requires great care in its preparation.