NICKEL.
This metal is of a white color and very difficult to melt, it is about eight times heavier than water and is chiefly obtained from the ore known as kupfer-nickel, found very plentifully in Germany; this kupfer-nickel is a native arseniuret of nickel, that is, nickel in chemical combination with arsenic. It is very difficult to separate these two metals, but an effectual and cheap process has lately been devised to do so.
Nickel is attracted by the magnet similar to iron but in an inferior degree. Till lately nickel was but little used, but it now forms the basis of those compound metals known as nickel-silver, German-silver, and British-plate, all which varieties are generally employed as an economical substitute for silver; it is also used largely as a foundation on which to deposit pure silver by the electro-plating process, for which purpose it is most admirably suited being very superior to copper in consequence of its color, as the silver always wears off unequally and exposes the ground work of metal beneath. German-silver is composed of copper, nickel, and zinc, in various proportions. Nickel always forms one of the constituents of meteoric iron, those mysterious masses called aerolites, which sometimes fall to the earth.