Antimony
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Antimony. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
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 presents medical treatment from an era before modern medicine. The remedies described are ineffective against the conditions named, and some of the ingredients or doses are harmful. Do not use them to treat any illness; consult a qualified medical professional. This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon. in chemistry, a triad metallic element, but in some less staple compounds it appears to be pentad. Symbol, Sb.; atomic weight, 122; sp. gr., 6.8; melting point, 450°. It can be distilled, but takes fire when strongly heated in the air, forming Sb2O3. Antimony is a bright bluish-white, brittle, easily pulverized metal, which occurs in Sb2S3, and as cervanite, Sb2O4; also as valentinite ANTINOMIANISM and senarmonite, Sb2O3. The metal is obtained by heating the sulphide with half its weight of metallic iron, or with potassium carbonate. It is oxidized by nitric acid, forming Sb2O5. Type metal is an alloy of lead with 20 per cent. of antimony. Finely powdered antimony takes fire when thrown into chlorine gas. Salts of antimony are used in medicine, in large doses they are poisonous. Antimony is detected by the properties of its sulphide, chloride, and of SbHs. It is precipitated by metallic zinc and iron from its solutions as a black powder. In mineralogy, antimony occurs native, occasionally alloyed with a minute portion of silver, iron, or arsenic. It is very brittle. It occurs in Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Borneo, Chile, Mexico, Canada, and New Brunswick. In pharmacy, black antimony consists of native sulphide of antimony fused and afterward powdered. It is not itself used as a drug, but is employed in preparing tartar emetic, sulphurated antimony, and terchloride of antimony. It is given to horses as an alterative powder; two parts of sulphur, one of saltpeter, and one of black antimony. It is used in the preparation of Bengal signal lights; six parts of saltpeter, two of sulphur, and one of black antimony. Chloride of antimony (SbCl3) is a solution used as a caustic and escharotic; it is never given internally. Sulphurated antimony consists of a sulphide of antimony with a small admixture of oxide of antimony. It enters into the composition of compound calomel pills. ANTINOMIANISM (Greek, anti, "against," and nomos, law"), the doctrine or opinion that Christians are freed from obligation to keep the law of God. It is generally regarded, by advocates of the doctrine of justification by faith, as a monstrous abuse and perversion of that doctrine, upon which it usually professes to be based. The term was first used at the time of the Reformation, when it was applied by Luther to the opinions advocated by Johann Agricola. Agricola had adopted the principles of the Reformation; but in 1527 he found fault with Melanchthon for recommending the use of the law, and particularly of the ten commandments, in order to produce conviction and repentance, which he deemed inconsistent with the Gospel. Ten years after, he maintained in a disputation at Wittenberg that, as men are justified simply by the Gospel, the law is in no way necessary for justification or for sanctification. The Antinomian controversy of this time, in which Luther took a very active part, terminated in 1540, in a retractation by Agricola; but views more extreme than his were afterward advocated by some of the English sectaries of the period of the Commonwealth; and without being formally professed by a distinct sect, antinomianism has been from time to time reproduced with various modifications. It ought, however, to be borne in mind that the term has no reference to the conduct, but only to the opinions, of men; so that men who practically disregard and violate the known law of God are not, therefore, antinomians; and it is certain enough that men really holding opinions more or less antinomian have in many cases been men of moral life. Antinomianism usually originates in mistaken notions of Christian liberty, or in confusion of views as to the relation between the moral law and the Jewish law of ceremonial ordinances.
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
This is a brilliant white metal of a crystalline texture and bluish white color, and so brittle that it cannot be rolled into sheets nor drawn into wire. Its specific gravity is 6.71; melts at 810 deg., crystallizes in pyramids, and volatilizes at an intense heat. There are several varieties of the ore, but the sulphuric, or gray antimony, is the most abundant, and yields the metal of commerce. To reduce the ore it is first made into a powder, after which it is heated in a reverberatory furnace; the melted sulphuret then flows from the infusible earthy matter, and is subsequently smelted and purified. Exposed to the air at ordinary temperatures antimony does not rust; this property, combined with its hardening influence on other metals, renders it eminently useful in the composition of many useful alloys to make them harder and whiter. It is usually found associated with other metals, but always contains more or less iron. The crude metal, or sulphuret, is employed for purifying gold, the sulphur from which being readily absorbed by the inferior metals, while the antimony unites with the gold. Antimony has generally been distinguished as Regulus, or petty king, because of the hardening influence previously mentioned; alloyed with an equal quantity of tin we have a brilliant white and somewhat hard alloy suitable for some descriptions of specula. Sodium and potassium are the metals with which antimony unites the most readily, as, even when the former are alloyed with other metals, the association is found to be of an intimate character. Antimony readily combines with gold, but destroys the ductility of the latter, producing a granular alloy of a golden tint, the depth of which is proportionate to the amount of gold present. Antimony contracts little or none in cooling. For this reason it is doubly valuable in the production of types, music and other plates, etc., as, besides giving the requisite degree of hardness to such alloys, it enables the founder to obtain a true copy of the matrix--something almost impossible in most of the other metals employed for this purpose, owing to their high shrinking qualities. For a large variety of alloys in which antimony enters as an ingredient, see WHITE ALLOYS; TYPE-METAL; ANTIFRICTION ALLOYS; PEWTER; BRITANNIA METAL; QUEEN'S METAL; MUSIC METAL; SPECULUM METAL; SOLDERS.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a brilliant, bluish-white, brittle, crystalline metal, found in nature in combination with sulphur. Ores of antimony are found in California and Nevada, Mexico, New Brunswick , Bavaria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Corsica, Sardinia, Asia Minor , Japan, Borneo, Cape Colony, Australia, and New Zealand . Antimony is obtained by melting the ores with iron, in which case the sulphur deserts the antimony for the iron, leaving the antimony free. Only about 4,000 tons a year are required for the arts. Its principal use is in alloys, particularly with lead and tin, to form type metal, to which antimony gives the required degree of hardness. Antimony is used in medicine. The alchemists called it regulus, from the readiness with which it acted on gold, the royal metal. Ground antimony is much used by the women of Turkish harems for painting the eyebrows and eyelashes, and to give luster to the eyes. See Alloy ; Bell ; Poison 2026 Editor's Note: Little-noticed here, antimony is now a strategic metal : it hardens the lead in car batteries, and its compounds are the flame retardants in electronics, mattresses and children's pajamas. Because China controls most of the supply, it is classed among the 'critical minerals' nations now scramble to secure. (Ed: BR 2026-07-07)