Word Finder - metals

definition

(heading) Chemical elements or alloys, and the mines where their ores come from.

definition

A light tincture used in a coat of arms, specifically argent and or.

definition

Molten glass that is to be blown or moulded to form objects.

definition

A category of rock music encompassing a number of genres (including thrash metal, death metal, heavy metal, etc.) characterized by strong drum-beats and distorted guitars.

definition

The substance that constitutes something or someone; matter; hence, character or temper; mettle.

definition

The effective power or calibre of guns carried by a vessel of war.

definition

(in the plural) The rails of a railway.

definition

(travel) The actual airline operating a flight, rather than any of the codeshare operators.

example

We have American Airlines tickets, but it's on British Airways metal.

definition

To make a road using crushed rock, stones etc.

definition

The rail tracks owned by a company or organisation; a rail network

example

It was appropriate that 'King' number 6000 began the return to steam on British Rail metals in 1971.

This salt may be used for the separation of cobalt and nickel, since the latter metal does not form a similar double nitrite, but it is necessary that the alkaline earth metals should be absent, for in their presence nickel forms complex nitrites containing the alkaline earth metal and the alkali metal.

In light Kundt's name is widely known for his inquiries in anomalous dispersion, not only in liquids and vapours, but even in metals, which he obtained in very thin films by means of a laborious process of electrolytic deposition upon platinized glass.

Davy showed that they were oxides of various metals.

By far the greater portion of these metals came from the southern part of the state.

Vases of all kinds, carved in marble or other stones, cast or beaten in metals or fashioned in clay, the latter in enormous number and variety, richly ornamented with coloured schemes, and sometimes bearing moulded decoration.

The astrological belief that plants, animals and minerals are under the influence of the planets is shown in the older names of some of the metals, e.g.

The metals comprising this group are never found in the uncombined condition, but occur most often in the form of carbonates and sulphates; they form oxides of the type RO, and in the case of calcium, strontium and barium, of the type R02.

The hydrogen of the hydroxyl group in phenol can be replaced by metals, by alkyl groups and by acid radicals.

The metallic derivatives (phenolates, phenates or carbolates) of the alkali metals are obtained by dissolving phenol in a solution of a caustic alkali, in the absence of air.

It combines with many metals to form sulphides, and also decomposes many metallic salts with consequent production of sulphides, a property which renders it extremely useful in chemical analysis.

The sulphites are prepared by the action of sulphur dioxide on the oxides, hydroxides or carbonates of the metals, or by processes of precipitation.

Notwithstanding the wealth of the country in minerals and metals of all kinds, and the endeavours made by government to encourage mining, including the imposition of protective Mining tariffs even against Finland (in 1885), this and the related and re- industries are still at a low stage of development.

The imports of foreign metals in the rough and of coal are steadily increasing, while the exports, never otherwise than insignificant, show no advance.

By 1882 they had produced $60,000,000 of precious metals.

Many salts of the acid are known and, with the exception of those of the alkali metals, they are difficultly soluble in water.

The citrates are a numerous class of salts, the most soluble of which are those of the alkaline metals; the citrates of the alkaline earth metals are insoluble.

In the narrow sense of the word, alchemy is the pretended art of making gold and silver, or transmuting the base metals into the noble ones.

Some are in Greek and demotic, and one, of peculiar interest from the chemical point of view, gives a number of receipts, in Greek, for the manipulation of base metals to form alloys which simulate gold and are intended to be used in the manufacture of imitation jewellery.

The author of these receipts is not under any delusion that he is transmuting metals; the MS. is merely a workshop manual in which are described processes in daily use for preparing metals for false jewellery, but it argues considerable knowledge of methods of making alloys and colouring metals.

Thus, in the treatise known as Physica et Mystica and falsely ascribed to Democritus (such false attributions are a constant feature of the literature of alchemy), various receipts are given for colouring and gilding metals, but the conception of transmutation does not occur.

Later, however, as in the Commentary on this work written by Synesius to Dioscorus, priest of Serapis at Alexandria, which probably dates from the end of the 4th century, a changed attitude becomes apparent; the more practical parts of the receipts are obscured or omitted, and the processes for preparing alloys and colouring metals, described in the older treatise, are by a mystical interpretation represented as resulting in real transmutation.

The conception of man, the microcosm, containing in himself all the parts of the universe or macrocosm, is also Babylonian, as again probably is the famous identification of the metals with the planets.

Of the first group the most interesting and possibly the oldest is the Book of Crates; it is remarkable for containing some of the signs used for the metals by the Greek alchemists, and for giving figures of four pieces of apparatus which closely resemble those depicted in Greek MSS., the former being never, and the latter rarely, found in other Arabic MSS.

The fundamental theory of the transmutation of metals is to be found in the Greek alchemists, although in details it was modified and elaborated by the Arabs and the Latin alchemists.

This is briefly the doctrine that the metals are composed of mercury and sulphur, which persisted in one form or another down to the 17th century.

Later, as in the works attributed to Basil Valentine, sulphur, mercury and salt are held to be the constituents of the metals.

But even among the late Arabian alchemists it was doubted whether the resources of the art were adequate to the task; and in the West, Vincent of Beauvais remarks that success had not been achieved in making artificial metals identical with the natural ones.

The metals he produced are said to have proved genuine on assay; when, however, in the following year he was challenged to repeat the experiments he was unable to do so and committed suicide.

Like most of the other metals of the group, it absorbs gases.

The chief imports are cotton piece goods, cotton twist, salt, sugar, provisions, railway materials, raw cotton, metals, coal, tobacco, spices and kerosene oil.

The search for this essence subsequently resolved itself into the desire to effect the transmutation of metals, more especially the base metals, into silver and gold.

In the view of some alchemists, the ultimate principles of matter were Aristotle's four elements; the proximate constituents were a " sulphur " and a " mercury," the father and mother of the metals; gold was supposed to have attained to the perfection of its nature by passing in succession through the forms of lead, brass and silver; gold and silver were held to contain very pure red sulphur and white quicksilver, whereas in the other metals these materials were coarser and of a different colour.

From an analogy instituted between the healthy human being and gold, the most perfect of the metals, silver, mercury, copper, iron, lead and tin, were regarded in the light of lepers that required to be healed.

Notwithstanding the false idea which prompted the researches of the alchemists, many advances were made in descriptive chemistry, the metals and their salts receiving much attention, and several of our important acids being discovered.

Metals on calcination gave calces from which the metals could.

The objections of the antiphlogistonists, such as the fact that calces weigh more than the original metals instead of less as the theory suggests, were answered by postulating that phlogiston was a principle of levity, or even completely ignored as an accident, the change of qualities being regarded as the only matter of importance.

Gold, the most perfect metal, had the symbol of the Sun, 0; silver, the semiperfect metal, had the symbol of the Moon, 0j; copper, iron and antimony, the imperfect metals of the gold class, had the symbols of Venus Mars and the Earth tin and lead, the imperfect metals of the silver class, had the symbols of Jupiter 94, and Saturn h; while mercury, the imperfect metal of both the gold and silver class, had the symbol of the planet,.

Gerhardt found that reactions could be best followed if one assumed the molecular weight of an element or compound to be that weight which occupied the same volume as two unit weights of hydrogen, and this assumption led him to double the equivalents accepted by Gmelin, making H= 1, 0 =16, and C = 12, thereby agreeing with Berzelius, and also to halve the values given by Berzelius to many metals.

All the metals are solids at ordinary temperatures with the exception of mercury, which is liquid.

But the difference between these two classes of elements is one of degree only, and they gradually merge into each other; moreover the electric relations of elements are not absolute, but vary according to the state of combination in which they exist, so that it is just as impossible to divide the elements into two classes according to this property as it is to separate them into two distinct classes of metals and non-metals.

The metals may be arranged in a series according to their power of displacing one another in salt solutions, thus Cs, Rb, K, Na, Mg, Al, Mn, Zn, Cd, Tl, Fe, Co, Ni, Sn, Pb, (H), Sb, Bi, As, Cu, Hg, Ag, Pd, Pt, Au.

An acid (q.v.) is a compound of hydrogen, which element can be replaced by metals, the hydrogen being liberated, giving substances named salts.

The action of these acids on many metals was also studied; Glauber obtained zinc, stannic, arsenious and cuprous chlorides by dissolving the metals in hydrochloric acid, compounds hitherto obtained by heating the metals with corrosive sublimate, and consequently supposed to contain mercury.

Vauquelin in 1797, and Klaproth's investigation of tellurium in 1798, the next important series of observations was concerned with platinum and the allied metals.

The great number and striking character of the compounds of this group of metals have formed the subject of many investigations, and already there is a most voluminous literature.

Considerable uncertainty existed as to the atomic weights of these metals, the values obtained by Berzelius being doubtful.

Berzelius's investigation of the action of the electric current on salts clearly demonstrated the invaluable assistance that electrolysis could render to the isolator of elements; and the adoption of this method by Sir Humphry Davy for the analysis of the hydrates of the metals of the alkalis and alkaline earths, and the results which he thus achieved, established its potency.

Here he met with greater difficulty, and it is to be questioned whether he obtained any of these metals even in an approximately pure form (see Electrometallurgy).

Schneider and others, have proved the existence of " colloidal silver "; similar forms of the metals gold, copper, and of the platinum metals have been described.

Within two years of the invention the authors announced the discovery of two metals, rubidium and caesium, closely allied to sodium, potassium and lithium in properties, in the mineral lepidolite and in the Diirkheim mineral water.