ANTHRACITE, from ανθραξ, coal, is a species of coal found in the transition rock formation, and is often called stone coal. It has a grayish black, or iron black colour, an imperfectly metallic lustre, conchoidal fracture, and a specific gravity of from 1·4 to 1·6, being, therefore, much denser than the coal of the proper coal measures. It consists wholly of carbon, with a small and variable proportion of iron, silica, and alumina. It is difficult to kindle in separate masses, and burns when in heaps or grates without smell or smoke, leaving sometimes an earthy residuum. It has been little explored or worked in the old world; but is extensively used in the United States of America, and has become of late years a most valuable mineral to that country, where it is burned in peculiar grates, adapted to its difficult combustion. In Pennsylvania the anthracite coal formation has been traced through a tract many miles in width, and extending across the two entire counties of Luzerne and Schuylkill. At Maunch Chunk, upon the Lehigh, 800 men were employed so far back as 1825, in digging this coal. In that year 750,000 bushels were dispatched for Philadelphia. It is worked there with little cost or labour, being situated on hills from 300 to 600 feet above the level of the neighbouring rivers and canals, and existing in nearly horizontal beds, of from 15 to 40 feet in thickness, covered by only a few feet of gravelly loam. At Portsmouth, in Rhode Island, an extensive stratum of this coal has been worked, with some interruptions, for 20 years; and more recently a mine of anthracite has been opened at Worcester, in Massachusetts, at the head of the Blackstone canal. It has been of late employed in South Wales, for smelting iron, and in a cupola blast furnace, by Mr. Crane.
ANTIGUGGLER. A small syphon of metal, which is inserted into the mouths of casks, or large bottles, called carboys, to admit air over the liquor contained in them, and thus to facilitate their being emptied without agitation or a guggling noise.
ANTIMONY. (Antimoine, Fr.; Spiessglanz, or Spiessglass, Ger.) The only ore of this metal found in sufficient abundance to be smelted, is the sulphuret, formerly called crude antimony. It occurs generally in masses, consisting of needles closely aggregated, of a metallic lustre, a lead-gray colour, inclining to steel-gray, which is unchanged in the streak. The needles are extremely brittle, and melt even in the flame of a candle, with the exhalation of a sulphureous smell. The powder of this sulphuret is very black, and was employed by women in ancient times to stain their eyebrows and eyelids. This ore consists in 100 parts of 72·86 metal, and 27·14 sulphur. Specific gravity from 4·13 to 4·6.
The veins of sulphuret of antimony occur associated with gangues of quartz, sulphate of barytes, and carbonate of lime; those of Allémont occur in the numerous fissures of a mica schist, evidently primitive.
In treating the ore to obtain the metal, the first object is to separate the gangue, which was formerly done by filling crucibles with the mixed materials, placing them on the hearth of an oven, and exposing them to a moderate heat. As the sulphuret easily melts, it ran out through a hole in the bottom of the crucible into a pot placed beneath, and out of the reach of the fire. But the great loss from breakage of the crucibles, has caused another method to be adopted. In this the broken ore, being sorted, is laid on the bottom of a concave reverberatory hearth, where it is reduced.
[Figs. 18.] [19.] represent a wind or flame furnace, for the reduction of antimony. The hearth is formed of sand and clay solidly beat together, and slopes from all sides towards the middle, where it is connected with the orifice a, which is closed with dense coal-ashes; b is the air channel up through the bridge; c, the door for introducing the prepared ore, and running off the slags; d, the bridge; e, the grate; f, the fire or fuel-door; g, the chimney. With 2 or 3 cwt. of ore, the smelting process is completed in from 8 to 10 hours. The metal thus obtained is not pure enough, but must be fused under coal dust, in portions of 20 or 30 pounds, in crucibles, placed upon a reverberatory hearth.
To obtain antimony free from iron, it should be fused with some antimonic oxide in a crucible, whereby the iron is oxidized and separated. The presence of arsenic in antimony is detected by the garlic smell, emitted by such an alloy when heated at the blow-pipe; or, better, by igniting it with nitre in a crucible; in which case, insoluble antimonite and antimoniate of potash will be formed along with soluble arseniate. Water digested upon the mixture, filtered, and then tested with nitrate of silver, will afford the brown-red precipitate characteristic of arsenic acid.
According to Berthier, the following materials afford, in smelting, an excellent product of antimony: 100 parts of sulphuret; 60 of hammerschlag (protoxide of iron from the shingling or rolling mills); 45 to 50 of carbonate of soda; and 10 of charcoal powder. From 65 to 70 parts of metallic antimony or regulus should be obtained. Glauber salts may be used instead of soda. For another mode of smelting antimony, at Malbosc, in the department of Ardèche, in France, see [Liquation].