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To Purify and Reduce Silver (Proceed as above and digest)

Proceed as above, and digest the washed chloride with pure copper and ammonia.

The quantity of ammonia need not be sufficient to dissolve the chloride. Leave the mixture for a day, then wash the silver thoroughly. Or: Boil the washed and moist chloride in solution of pure potash, adding a little sugar; when washed it is quite pure. solution and applying it to the silver when an oxidized surface is required, and allowing the solution to dry upon the silver. The darkness of the color produced varies according to the strength of the platinum solution, from a light steel gray to nearly black. The effect of this process, when combined with what is termed dead work, is very pretty, and may be easily applied to medals, giving scope for the exercise of taste. The high appreciation in which ornaments in oxidized silver are now held, render a notice of the process followed interesting. There are two distinct shades in use-one produced by chloride, which has a brownish tint, and the other by sulphur, which has a blueish-black tint. To produce the former, it is only necessary to wash the article with a solution of sal-ammoniac; a much more beautiful tint may, however, be obtained by employing a solution composed of equal parts of sulphate of copper and salammoniac in vinegar. The fine black tint may be produced by a slightly warm solution 3216. Peale's Method of Obtaining Pure Silver from its Solutions. By adding in excess, a saturated solution of common salt to the solution of nitrate of silver, the metal is thrown down, as an insoluble salt, the chloride of silver. The precipitate must then be carefully washed until it is entirely freed from the presence of nitric acid. Granulated zinc must then be added to the chloride, and stirred through the mass. The of sulphuret of potassium or sodium. (Dr. finer the zinc has been granulated, the more Ellsner.) rapid wiil be the reduction. Dilute sulphuric 3220. To Prepare Nitro-Muriate acid must also be added, and the whole stirred (Chloride) of Platinum. The nitro-muriate until the reduction is complete, which will of platinum is easily prepared: Take 1 part be known by the entire disappearance of the nitric acid, and 2 parts hydrochloric (muriatic) white chloride, and its conversion into a grey acid; mix together and add a little platinum; powder. A new set of affinities takes place keep the whole at or near a boiling heat; the with great rapidity in this combination, and the chlorine is liberated from the silver, which takes its metallic form, as above stated, in the appearance of a grey powder. The zinc, having been added in excess, must now be removed by the addition of dilute sulphuric mercury. Arrange the zinc as for the lead acid; after all action has ceased, the solution trec. Very brilliant and beautiful. metal is then dissolved, forming the solution required. 3221. Το Make a Silver Tree. Dissolve 20 grains nitrate of silver in 1 fluid ounce of water in a phial, and add 1/2 drachm pure of zinc must be decanted, or drawn off with a syphon, and the silver washed until free from acidulous matter, after which it may be dried by pressure, or the simple application of heat 3222. To Clean Silver after it is Soldered. Make it just red hot, and let it cool; then boil it in alum water, in an earthen vessel. and it will be as clean as when new.