Lead
3 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Lead. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
Important: Safety Warning This page states that the risk of lead dissolving from water pipes is slight. It is not. There is no safe level of lead exposure, it accumulates in the body, and it is particularly damaging to the developing brains of children. This information has been left in for historical purposes but should not be acted upon. a soft, bluish gray metal with high lustre. Lead is 11.37 times as heavy as water. It melts at 619 deg. F. If melted in the air, the surface becomes coated with dross, giving an impression of impurity, but it is simply a combination of lead and oxygen. By removing the crust and allowing air access to the pure molten lead a new coating will form and so on until the lead is used up. Lead, in quantity, is almost as poisonous as mercury. Absolutely pure water, which, by the way, is tasteless and without sparkle, dissolves a small amount of lead in open air, but ordinary water does not. The Latin name of lead is plumbum; whence the terms plumbing, plumber, and plumb-line. Lead occurs in nature in several minerals, the most important of which is a compound of lead and sulphur, known as galena. Galena, Illinois, takes its name from this ore. In the United States , lead ore has been found in the mountains from Maine to Georgia, but not in very profitable quantities. The Missouri lead district includes the lead ores of Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, and adjacent states. It centers commercially in St. Louis and has given that city an importance of long standing as a producer of ammunition. The first mining of Colorado was that of lead at Leadville on the head waters of the Arkansas River where a most remarkable silver-lead lode was discovered. Utah has important lead-silver mines. The famous Coeur d'Alene mine of Idaho yields as high as 60,000,000 pounds of lead a year. Montana and Arizona, in short all the mountainous states of the West, produce lead. Until of late, Spain has led the world in the production of this metal. The following table gives the world production in tons for 1907: Countries. Production. United States 317,568 Spain 185,800 Germany 142,571 Australia 97,000 Mexico 72,000 England 4,700 Italy 22,900 France 23,000 Belgium 25,800 Greece 13,800 Austria-Hungry 15,400 Turkey 7,000 Canada 21,571 Japan 3,500 Sweden 700 Russia 100 South America 100 Africa and East India 150 Total, tons . . . . . 972,160 Lead is combined with carbon to produce the white lead used in paints. This is its most extensive use. Next in importance is the use in lead pipe and sheet lead employed by plumbers. There is just a chance of water, tinged with certain acids, dissolving enough lead to be poisonous; but the danger is so slight, and lead is so free from rust and bends into crannies so easily, that it is a favorite metal. Large quantities of lead are used in making shot. The lead is mixed with a little arsenic, three parts out of 700, to make it harder and to cause it to assume a more perfectly spherical form when dropped through the air. Manufacturers erect tall shot towers, as at St. Louis. The molten lead is poured through a sieve at the top of the tower and has time in falling not only to gather in globules, but to harden ere it falls into a tank of water at the foot. The shot is then run over sieves to assort it into sizes. Type is made from lead and antimony combined in the ratio of seventy-six parts of lead to twenty-four of antimony. The antimony is added to give hardness and also because it expands slightly in cooling and gives a clear-cut, sharp face to the type. The pigment known as chrome yellow is chromate of lead. Lead was one of the metals known to the ancients, who called it saturn. Lead poisoning was known as saturnine poisoning. See Plumbing; Graphite ; Paint ; Type
The Encyclopedia of Founding (1892)
Ores of lead occur in great abundance in almost all parts of the world. They are generally in veins, sometimes in siliceous rocks, sometimes in calcareous rocks. Abundant scripture testimony proves the existence of this metal in olden times, and we are informed that the Romans used sheet-lead in the manufacture of water-pipes. The metal is very heavy but soft, is of a bluish-gray color, of great brilliancy. The specific gravity of lead is 11.35, and it melts at 617 deg. Almost all the lead of commerce is obtained from galena (sulphide of lead). It is then pickled, broken, and washed, and afterwards roasted, to eliminate the sulphur. Lead is an important metal in the arts. Rolled into sheets it is used for roofing houses, for cisterns and pipes. It is also of great service in the construction of large chambers for the manufacture of sulphuric acid; its value for making shot is well known. Lead enters into many very useful alloys, as with bismuth for fusible alloys, with antimony for type-metal, with arsenic for shot, with tin for pewter and solders, with copper for pot-metal--for which compound it cannot be used more than one half lead, as it separates in cooling. With zinc it will scarcely unite, but their union may be brought about by a small proportion of arsenic. Many of the numerous alloys for mechanical and other purposes are improved by certain proportions of lead, and very few mixtures but may be made more fusible, malleable, and sharper in the cast by a slight addition of this metal; but with gold it forms an alloy of extreme brittleness; 1/4 of a grain of lead will render an ounce of gold perfectly brittle, although both gold and lead are such soft and ductile metals. The ductility of copper at any temperature is impaired by the use of lead. Alloyed with silver, the metals will separate if slowly cooled from the melting point. It does not appear that cast iron and lead alloys will answer any useful purpose. Of the compounds of lead other than alloys we have white-lead or carbonate of lead, and red-lead or red oxide of lead, the latter being much used in the manufacture of flint-glass and porcelain. The various alloys of which lead forms a component part will be found under the following heads: FUSIBLE ALLOYS; TYPE-METAL; LEAD-SHOT; PEWTER; SOLDER; POT-METAL; BISMUTH; ANTIMONY; ARSENIC; TIN; COPPER; ALLOYS; BRASS; ANTI-FRICTION METALS; WHITE-LEAD; RED-LEAD.
American Watchmaker and Jeweler (1892)
Melts at Deg. F. 1 1 25 558 7 1 1/2 1 334 2 1 10 541 8 2 1 340 3 1 5 511 9 3 1 356 4 1 3 482 10 4 1 365 5 1 2 441 11 5 1 378 6 1 1 37 12 6 1 380