BROMINE ( Neo-1.81. brominktni, from Gk. ,,3pc'Jpoc, brcinios, stench; referring to its suffocat ing odor). An elementary chemical substance dis cuvered by Belard in 1826. It doe, not occur in the isolated state, but is found in combination with silver, as bromyrite and iodobromite: in combination with alkalies and alkaline earths, in sea and mineral waters, and in some saline springs; also in many marine plants and animals. Bromine is prepared commercially from liquors containing bromides, by distilling them with sulphuric or hydrochloric acid, and manganese dioxide. The crude bromine thus isolated may be purified by repeated fractional distillations, and, finally, by distilling with potassium bromide, for the purpose of removing any chlorine that may be present. Bromine is thus manufactured from the mother liquors of salt-works, at Stassfurt in Germany, and at Syracuse, N. Y., Pomeroy, Ohio, the Kanawha region in West Virginia, and Michigan, in the United States.
Bromine (symbol Br, atomic weight 79.96) is a dark, brown-red volatile liquid with a most irritating odor. Its specific gravity at 0° C. is 3.133328. It freezes at —7.3° C. to a reddish brown crystalline solid with a semi-metallic lus tre. and boils at 63° C. It is an irritant poison, and if dropped upon the skin produces a sore that heals with great difficulty. It is used as a bleaching agent and as a disinfectant: also in medicine, in the manufacture of certain coal-tar dyes (e.g. eosin), and in chemistry. Dur ing 1899, 433,004 pounds of bromine were pro duced in the United States, valued at $108,251. Among the inorganic compounds of bromine may be mentioned hydrobromic acid with the bromides, bromic acid with the bromates, and hypobromons acid with the hypobromites. Bromine also en ters into the composition of a• large number of organic compounds.