ANTIMONY (Low Lat. antimonium, of dis puted origin). A metallic element that was known to the ancients, hut was first isolated in 1450. It is found native in small quantities, sometimes associated with silver, iron, or arsenic. Its chief commercial source is the pay antimony ore or stibnite„ which is found in France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, and Italy, in Eu rope; in New South Wales, Australia; in Japan, and in this country in Arkansas, Nevada, Califor nia, and :Montana. The usual process for the reduction of the ore is by roasting the sulphide, with charcoal at a gentle heat, the antimonions oxide thus driven off being collected in Hues. The residue, "antimony ash," consisting largely of antimony tetroxide, is mixed with reducing agents and fused in a crucible at a low red heat. The slag, which is called crocus of antimony,rise.s above the metal, while the latter collects at the bottom of the crucible.
Antimony (symbol, Sig., at. wgt. 120.43) is a brittle, hard, silver-white metal, easily crystal lized, with a specific gravity of 6.71 to 6.80. It melts at 450° C., and boils at a white heat. Metallic antimony is chiefly used as a constitu ent of alloys; with lead and tin, it forms type metal, stereotype metal, and pewter: with tin and copper, it forms britannia metal and anti friction metal: also, in small quantities with copper, metal. Antimony combines with
acid radicals, forming two classes of salts: those in which it is combined as a triad, yielding anti minions compounds. and those in which it acts as a pentad clement, forming antimonie com pounds. The more important commercial corn pounds of antimony are the trisulphide, used in refilling gold and silver from copper. in the preparation of safety matches, in percussion caps, and in the manufacture of fireworks: the tri chloride, called butter of antimony, used as a bronzing solution for gun barrels; the trioxide, employed in the preparation of tartar emetic, which is a tartrate of potassium and antimony, used in medicine and as a mordant in dyeing and calico printing. The sulphides of antimony have long been used in medicine, and are also constitu ents of the pigments Merimee's yellow and Naples yellow. During 1900, there were produced in the United States, chiefly from imported ores, 1750 short tons of metallic antimony, valued at $340,. 9S0.