Yeah,
gettin' by on gettin' by is my stock-in-trade
Living it day-to-day, picking up the pieces wherever they fall
Just lettin' it roll, lettin' the high times carry the low
Just living my life easy come, easy
Gettin" on from a 1993 album. How is this album related to the mineral mercury?
In my undergraduate mineralogy class I learned, as a matter of curiosity, that a student could use a blowpipe and Bunsen burner on pieces of cinnabar (HgS) and produce droplets of a silver liquid—native mercury. That little tidbit has stuck with me for over 60 years and was one of the “things” that really turned me on to geology. I also learned, in a chemistry class, that one could partially “dissolve” a copper penny in nitric acid and “slim it down”. Take some mercury, it seemed very common in the chem lab, and caress the slimmed down penny and presto, one had a penny that resembled a dime. The more adventurous students would then use the new coin in the ten-cent soda machine and out popped a bottle of R.C. Cola! Yep, that is what I learned in “college”--just gettin' by on gettin' by...Just lettin" it roll.
Thirty years down the road I was doing early morning decanal
work in my office in Missouri and wondered about the wail of approaching
emergency sirens. Oh boy, they pulled into my territory—Science Hall and here
came the emergency horns/sirens booming out in the Hall itself and students
wearily heading out the doors (most faculty just hid in their offices). I
thought, “oh crap, a student is ticked off at their professor and is going to
blow up the chem lab.” About that time in came, not the SWAT team, but the boys
and ladies in their space suits. It turned out that one of the lab students
dropped an old mercury thermometer on the floor and some droplets of mercury
spilled out. One of the space suit boys said something like, “how dangerous is
it? What do you think we out to do?” As I nabbed a pair of gloves, I said, “grab
that heavy, small plastic bag and follow me.” I walked over to the broken
thermometer, reached down and grabbed it, and dropped it in the bag, All I
could spot was three mercury droplets on the floor, so I corralled them on a
sheet of paper and then into the bag. I told the space suit guys to turn off
that stupid alarm and go back to the station and have a cup of coffee. I took
the bag down to the storeroom and told the attendant to put this mercury into
the vault and immediately round up the remainder of the mercury thermometers
for disposal. We had been working slowly on their disposal since it was a
fairly expensive proposition. I returned to my office, wrote up the required
report, and stuck a note into my file labeled The Life of a Science Dean.
Another 30 years down the road and I was still playing
with mercury! I had pulled out a mount containing mercury and decided a better
“look see” was in order. The mercury mineral in the specimen was calomel, a
mercury chloride ([Hg2]Cl2). It seemed to fit in with the
my other mercury related Blog posts: montroydite (12-21-23), galkhanite
(11-24-23), rouxelite ((3-4-23), tiemannite (12-10-22), luanheite (12-10-22),
cinnabar (3-7-22), schuetteite (3-30-20), coloradoite (1-10-21), kleinite
(11-27-19), laffittite (2-26-19).
Calomel, the mercury chloride, is one of the best-known
minor mercury minerals due to its use in thunderclappers. More on those later.
Mercury occurs in two different oxidation states plus Hg elemental mercury: + 1
Hg or mercurous mercury; +2 Hg mercuric mercury. A note
here: the +1 mercurous mercury always occurs, as a chem buddy tried to explain,
as a dimer where two identical mercury molecules are joined together by weak
bonds. Therefore, the monovalent mercury is written as Hg2++
and is different than the bivalent mercury Hg++. So, out of curiosity,
I asked about the difference—physical properties are different, chemical
reactivity is different, there is a difference in stabilities. "OK, that’s good
for now", I whimpered. My friend is a physical chemist, and those scientists live in an
alternate world.
Mercury++ is the most common oxidation state in nature
and Mercury+ dimers producing compounds are rare. However, the mercurous
mercury compound Hg2++Cl2 is the most common
monovalent compound and is known as the mineral calomel or mercury chloride. I
know, confusing. The most common mercuric mercury (Hg++) in the rockhound world
is the mineral cinnabar (HgS), mercury sulfide. In cinnabar the metal mercury
has a charge of ++ and the non-metal sulfur a charge of - - so cinnabar comes
out as HgS. Probably just as well that: 1) I dropped out of chemistry after
three semesters and did not have an opportunity to take P Chem; and 2) my
career did not involve any sort of “teaching” chemistry other than elementary
and cursory discussions in Geology 100.
Calomel, like most mercury minerals, can be very difficult
to identify, especially in small mounts. Most of the ole pluggers like me use
color and collecting locality as major parts of our sleuthing to make
reasonable identifications. Mineral identification books and web sites tell me
that calomel may be gray, white, yellow white, yellow gray, ash gray or maybe
brown in color. Not much help here. Like many mercury minerals, if calomel is exposed
to light (sunlight as well as lights in a home or office) the mineral darkens.
According to MinDat the darkening is likely due to the formation of
nanoparticles: see (https://mineralcare.web.ox.ac.uk/article/cinnabar).
That tidbit is for trivial information but is of little help in identification.
Now, perhaps here is a winner-the monovalent mercurous mercury minerals turn
black when they come into contact with ammonia. OK. Maybe some help here. As for close relatives to help with
identification, calomel is a member of the Calomel Group along with kuzminite.
a mercury bromide chloride and moschelite, a mercury iodide. Whoda would have
guessed that tidbit? Not much help here!
So now we move on to collecting locality, local
geology, and MinDat descriptions. The calomel specimen in my collection (Ex,
Mineralogical Research Com.) was collected from the Mariposa Mine, Terlingua,
Texas. Anytime one hears the name Terlingua they think of nowhere West Texas,
gateway to Big Bend, mercury mines, a ghost town, the Starlight Saloon, and
Jerry Jeff Walker.
The Terlingua Mining District has a fantastic
collection/remnant of the mercury mines and mining era artifacts scattered
across the desert. For a great story see Chasing Quicksilver History in
Beautiful Big Bend published in Texas Highways (October 15, 2017). The District
is also the third-largest mercury producing area in the United States although
it has been shuttered since 1973. According to MinDat, 50 valid minerals are
known from the District including nine Types (the Type Locality). All Types are
mercury minerals and include one of my favorite names—terlinguacreekite. In
addition, seven other mercury minerals (non-Types) are known from the District
including the major elemental mercury producer, cinnabar. So, the mines at
Terlingua are full of, well maybe just contain, numerous mercury minerals.
Cinnabar was known, and used by, Native Americans
(body ornamentation and pictographs) centuries before the arrival of
prospectors and miners in Terlingua. According to the local sources, cinnabar
produced the first flask of mercury (76 pounds) from Terlingua in 1884. From
that date until the early 1970s mercury was produced from several (? 25-40)
mines. The boom periods seemed to be right before, after, and during WW I, and
then during WW II. After the War some war-torn European countries dumped large
amounts of mercury into the world markets and greatly depressed prices. In
Texas mining expenses overpowered income and most mines shut down. For the next
25 years various mines would start production for a year or so and then close
down and by 1973 the last production ended.
My specimen of calomel is quite small and found in a
vug appearing in white crystalline calcite. The crystals are pale red in color
but have darkened considerably to a dark cherry red. They appear to be small
tabs and elongated “rectangles” with some being completely encased in calcite.
The pale red crystals have a subdued resinous luster while cherry red crystals
have a shiny subvitreous luster. Hardness and streak are impossible to
determine. Mineralogical Research placed a sticky arrow on the specimen that
pointed to, and specified, calomel.
There are a few scattered submillimeter splotches and smears of red material on the calcite including some very small prismatic crystals. I am guessing commancheite, a complex mercury oxychloride-bromide:
Hg2+55N3-24(NH2,OH)4(Cl,Br)34. However, I would not bet the farm on
that identification, but the Mariposa Mine is the Type Locality for that very
rare mineral.
Commancheite? Photomicrograph FOV ~2 mm.
As for thunderlappers, many decades ago in a small
grade school in central Kansas students spent many hours studying U.S. history,
and especially the history of the late 1700s and the formation of the United
States. At least we learned about history as the “facts” were presented in the
1950s. As a young student at that time, I was fascinated by events around and
during the Revolutionary War, including the construction of the Declaration of
Independence. I tried to write like John Handcock and poured over the signers
wondering if I had any long-lost relatives on that list. Later in life I was
able to trace my lineage back to a man named Francis Cook who actually came to
this country on the Mayflower in 1620. Later heroes include one Stephen
Percival who is listed as a member of the Cumberland County Milita—Hatch’s
Company of Minute Men [New York] during the Revolutionary War. So, no signers
of the Declaration (but signed Mayflower Compact) but one James Percival who
once heisted a small boat and ended up paying a hefty fine, one who served his
country by fighting in the War of Independence, and one Elizabeth Morse, AKA
Witch of Newbery, who was convicted of witchcraft in the 1690s. So now I know the source of some of my traits.
Now, back to a Physician by the name of Benjamin Rush
who was a signatory on the Declaration of Independence. He was a Pennsylvanian
delegate to the Continental Congress and lived in Philadelphia. Rush was
married and the father of 13 children. During the War Rush served as the
Surgeon General of the Continental Army and after the War worked in a large
variety of positions but seemed most happy teaching students about medicine and
chemistry. He also tutored Meriwether Lewis before his journey with William
Clark in the Corps of Discovery Expedition as Jefferson wanted Lewis to be the
Corp’s “medicine man.” Rush and Lewis constructed a medical supply bag that
included 50 dozen doses of the patented Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills. These little
pills contained over 50% mercury and were an “explosive” laxative, hence the
common name of thunderclappers. The men of the Corps consumed, by necessity, a diet
rich in meat and crappy water and therefore suffered “stomach distress.” So,
they often resorted to the thunderclappers as a means to loosen their bowels
and clean them out. Of course, the mercury had a very detrimental effect on the
men not the least of which was causing teeth to fall out of the gums and
messing up the internal organs.
So, what about my 1993 album question? Well, today Terlingua, with a permanent population of less than100, is a well-known tourist destination and serves as the drop off point for visitors to Big Bend National Park with last stop food, drink, and lodging. Terlingua also has that old hippie, country, lost in the desert, Devil may care, cold beer, and Willie Nelson vibe. Well, what better publicity for Terlingua than a 1973 funky rock and blues album by Jerry Jeff Walker entitled: VIVA TERLINGUA. The album included the giant hit, Up against the wall, the anthem of south Texas (and many other beer halls).
He was born in Oklahoma His wife's name's Betty Lou Thelma Liz And he's not responsible for what he's doing Cause his mother made him what he is
And it's up against the wall Redneck Mother Mother, who has raised her son so well He's thirty-four and drinking in a honky tonk Just kicking hippies butts and raising hell
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