Amalgamation of Some Alloys of Gold, Silver and Copper

THE surface of amalgamated metals is greasy to touch, and lustrous in appearance like liquid mercury. In a previous publication 1 the extreme tenuity (2·7 X 10 -4 cm.) of the film necessary to confer these properties on a pure silver surface was noted. This observation has been confirmed for gold-rich alloys of the legalized carat compositions used for jewellery, for some silver alloys, and for bronzes. By the nature of the problem, exactly reproducible results could scarcely be expected, but, in fact, surprisingly concordant values have been obtained. The problem is of interest in the amalgamation of coarse gold concentrates from the corduroy table on the Rand 2 .