Experiments.
Iodine has a beautiful metallic luster, with a bluish black color, and should be kept in a well-stoppered bottle. A small quantity placed in a clear flask and heated, affords a magnificent violet vapor, which may be poured from the flask into another glass vessel, when it condenses again into crystalline plates. The color of the vapor originates the name of this element, so called from a Greek word, meaning violet-colored. If a little iodine be placed in contact with a thin slice of phosphorus, the latter takes fire almost immediately.