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.
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To Preserve Vermilion
It is a fact well known to artists that the splendidly bright color of vermilion (cinnabar, sulphide of mercury) has a tendency, especially if it has been mixed with white lead, to become blackish brown and very dark-colored in a comparatively short time. This tendency is altogether obviated if, previous to being mixed with oil, it is thoroughly and intimately mingled with flowers of sulphur, in the proportion of 1 part sulphur to 8 parts vermilion.