Tag: history of metal

Mercury: the strangest metal of all

 

Quicksilver

1. another name for mercury

2. rapid or unpredictable in movement or in change: a quicksilver temper

[Old English, from cwicu alive (see quick) = seolfer silver. Literally, “live silver”

 

When I was in high school, there was a rumor that a kid several years ahead of us had committed suicide by sucking the mercury out of a thermometer. When a rumor is scary enough, you don’t bother to verify it, you just duck your head and run in the opposite direction. Ever since then, like many people, I have had a strange fascination with the substance.

Mercury is a study in contradictions. It is known for its toxic properties but has been prescribed through the ages as a healing substance; it is a heavy metal that is actually a liquid at room temperature. Mercury has always been revered for its shape-shifting properties that was considered the primordial metal, and the key that could unlock all the mysteries of alchemy.

Mercury shines like a mirror, it conducts electricity and in spite of the fact that it’s a liquid, it is a metal. In fact, it is a heavy metal, 13.5 times more dense than water.

This means that you could build a reflecting pool out of mercury. It has in fact been done. A mercury fountain was constructed for the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris, and in Spain large reflecting pools were filled with mercury to allow Caliphs to gaze at their reflections.

This also means that if you tried to jump into a pool filled with mercury, your bones would actually break. However, if you stepped into it, you could walk on its surface, sinking only about an inch with each step. If you were so inclined, you could also use it as a surface for billiards or a pool table, since the balls would only sink a fraction of an inch.

Mercury vapors are extremely toxic. This became evident in the 19th century when the makers of felt hats, who used mercuric nitrate in their trade, started exhibiting a huge array of strange behaviors. Hence the term, “mad as a hatter”.

Mozart may have died from mercury poisoning as well, at the young age of 35. Not because of making hats, but because like many rock stars, he was a major womanizer. Syphilis was common in his time, and the only treatment for it consisted of large doses of mercury, administered in a variety of ways. Because mercury has anti-bacterial properties, it may have even worked as a cure – unfortunately, at the loss of the patient. If you’ve ever heard of the saying “a night in the arms of Venus leads to a lifetime on Mercury”, now you know where it comes from.

Mercury has many valuable uses. It is used in electrical devices around the world. Despite its toxicity, there is little evidence that its use for dental fillings have done any harm. Mercury compounds exist even in modern medicine. It also happens to dissolve aluminum. In World War II, it was rumored that allied spies spread a paste of mercury on the wings and fuselages of German fighter planes, causing them to fall apart in midair.

As far as whether mercury from a thermometer could kill someone, the best answer I could find to this question is “no”. Apparently it would just go right through someone and come out the other end. Whether that amount would be enough to cause psychiatric disturbances is a moot point, since you’d have to be crazy to try it in the first place.

-Anja Wulf

The most popular screw in the world

Pretty much anything that can be bought or sold is available in the US. With a few notable exceptions, including medieval castles. You have to to to Europe (preferably) to see those.

If you do travel to Europe as a tourist, chances are that you will end up touring at least one medieval castle. They are truly fascinating places to visit for children or grown-ups alike. Of course, the best part of any castle tour are the dungeons. If you’re like most tourists, you’ll visit a castle that still has a reasonably well-equipped torture chamber. Completely morbid and jarring to see, but also highly memorable.

Inside the castle you will nearly always find a display of ancient medieval weapons and armor, some of the finest historical examples of metalworking in the world, to look at and sometimes even to touch. The intricacy of the chain mail is mind-boggling. The sharpness and geometric perfection of the swords, daggers, spears, lances and other pokey metal objects is impressive even by modern standards.

If you bother to read the little printed signs under these displays, you can learn more about these weapons and suits of armor: in particular, their specific uses, and when and where they were made. After a while, you might notice a predictable pattern: the majority of these metal items were made in Germany. This does not necessarily mean that most weapons and suits of armor were made in Germany (although this too could be argued); but it definitely means that the majority of ancient metal weapons to have survived more or less intact to this day were made in Germany (or its historical geographic and cultural equivalent).

Even to this day, Germany makes some of the finest blades and knives on the planet. Witness Wusthoff and J.A. Henckels, to name only a few. The history of metal and metalworking is so entwined with Germany that even the word “smith” can be traced back to a prehistoric German word which means “worker or craftsman”. Incidentally, that same word (“Schmied”) is still alive and well in the German language to this day, and it still means the same thing. Just another testament to the consistency of metalworking and metallurgy throughout Germanic history.

One reason that German metalworking gained such a foothold in medieval times was by revolutionizing plate armor. Although plate armor had been in use since ancient Greek and Roman times, it didn’t evolve much at all until the early 1500’s, with the German production of so-called Nuremberg armors, many of which are some of the best examples of incredible workmanship and beautiful design in the metalworking industry to this day.

As a result of this quantum leap in plate armor evolution, it naturally followed that weaponry had to be improved, if it were to have any chance of penetrating the Nuremberg armor suits. This “theory of natural evolution” as applied to the metal industry seems to go a long way in explaining Germany’s consistent history of excellence and predominance in the area of metalworking.

Although the slotted head screw still exists practically unchanged to this day, it was finally eclipsed in the early 20th century, by a new type of screw invented by a Henry F. Phillips. After a successful trial run on the 1936 Cadillac, the Phillips screw became successfully entrenched in the American auto industry and just took off from there. By the beginning of World War II, the Phillips head screw had become and still remains “the most popular screw in the world”, as Wikipedia puts it.

You had to read the whole thing, but now you know how I came up with the title of this article. In any case, I hope you found it informative, relevant and entertaining.

-Anja Wulf