e of
New York_ (2 vols., Albany, 1842).

ANTIMONY (symbol Sb, atomic weight 120.2), one of the metallic chemical
elements, included in the same natural family of the elements as
nitrogen, phosphorus, arsenic, and bismuth. Antimony, in the form of its
sulphide, has been known from very early times, more especially in
Eastern countries, reference to it being made in the Old Testament. The
Arabic name for the naturally occurring stibnite is "kohl"; Dioscorides
mentions it under the term [Greek: stimmi], Pliny as _stibium_; and
Geber as _antimonium_. By the German writers it is called _Speissglanz_.
Basil Valentine alludes to it in his _Triumphal Car of Antimony_ (circa
1600), and at a later date describes the preparation of the metal.

Native mineral antimony is occasionally found, and as such was first
recognized in 1748. It usually occurs as lamellar or glanular masses,
with a tin-white colour and metallic lustre, in limestone or in mineral
veins often in association with ores of silver. Distinct crystals are
rarely met with; these are rhombohedral and isomorphous with arsenic and
bismuth; they have a perfect cleavage parallel to the basal plane, c
(111), and are sometimes twinned on a rhombohedral plane, e (110).
Hardness 3-3-1/2 specific gravity 6.63-6.72. Sala in Sweden, Allemont in
Dauphine, and Sarawak in Borneo may be mentioned as some of the
localities for this mineral.

Antimony, however, occurs chiefly as the sulphide, stibnite; to a much
smaller extent it occurs in combination with other metallic sulphides in
the minerals wolfsbergite, boulangerite, bournonite, pyrargyrite, &c.
For the preparation of metallic antimony the crude stibnite is first
liquated, to free it from earthy and siliceous matter, and is then
roasted in order to convert it into oxide. After oxidation, the product
is reduced by heating with carbon, care being taken to prevent any loss
through volatilization, by covering the mass with a layer of some
protective substance such as potash, soda or glauber salt, which also
aids the refining. For rich ores the method of roasting the sulphide
with metallic iron is sometimes employed; carbon and salt or sodium
sulphate being used to slag the iron. Electrolytic methods, in which a
solution of antimony sulphide in sodium sulphide is used as the
electrolyte, have been proposed (see German Patent 67973, and also
Borcher's _Electro-Metallurgie_), but do not yet appear to have been
used on the la