A N T I M O N Y : ITS HISTORY, CHEMISTRY, MINERALOGY ...

CHAPTER VIT.
THE ANALYSIS OP ANTIMONY COMPOUNDS.
THIS chapter is divided into the following parts :—
A. Qualitative determination.
B. Quantitative determination.
1. Dry method—fire assaying.
2. Wet methods.
(a) Gravimetric.
(6) Volumetric,
(c) Electrolytic.
C. Special methods.
A. Qualitative.
The following is taken from Crookes *:—
" (a) Minerals which contain antimony, when heated alone before
the blowpipe on charcoal, or with the addition of 3 or 4 parte of
fusion mixture (K2CO3 + Na^COg), yield dense white fumes of antimonious
oxide, which in great measure escape into the atmosphere,
but which also in part become deposited on the charcoal support,
forming a well-marked white sublimate, or incrustation of the oxide.
" These results, though certainly in most cases very useful indications,
do not furnish, to the satisfaction of the mineralogist, sound,
conclusive evidence of the presence of antimony in the mineral tested,
seeing that several other bodies occurring in the mineral world give,
when heated before the blowpipe, exactly the same or nearly similar
reactions. As a consequence of the hitherto inconclusive blowpipe
evidence, mineralogists have usually considered it essential when
engaged in correct work to supplement those indications by means of
the accurate but tedious method of the ordinary wet way qualitative
chemical analysis.
* Select Methods in CfiemicaX Analysis, by Sir W. Crookes, pp. 372 et seq.
4th edition, 1905. Longmans, Green & Co.
178