NEUTRALIZATION, is the state produced when acid and alkaline matters are combined in such proportions that neither predominates, as evinced by the colour of tincture of litmus and cabbage remaining unaffected by the combination.
NICARAGUA WOOD, is the wood of the Cæsalpinia echinata, a tree which grows in Nicaraca. It is used with solution of tin as a mordant to dye a bright but fugitive red. It is an inferior sort of Brazil wood.
NICKEL, is a metal rather sparingly found, and in few localities; being usually associated with cobalt. Native nickel occurs at Westerwald in the Erzgebirge, in Bohemia, combined with arsenic, under the significant name of Kupfernickel; with cobalt, iron, and copper, as Arsenic-nickel, in the Harz; at Riechelsdorf in Hessia; as an oxide, in Nickelschwärtze; as a sulphuret of nickel in Haarkies; as a sulphuret and arseniate of nickel in Nickelglanz; and with sulphur and antimony in Nickelspiess glanzerz at Siegen. Nickel is always present in meteoric stones. Kupfernickel occurs in numerous external shapes; as reniform, globular, botroidal, arborescent, massive, and disseminated; fracture, coarse or fine grained, with metallic lustre; colour, copper red, occasionally brown and gray; in silver and cobalt veins, in gneiss, sienite, mica-slate, kupfer-schiefer, accompanied by speisse cobalt, native silver, quartz, &c. It is found in Westphalia near Olpe, in Hessia at Riechelsdorf, and Biber, in Baden; in the Saxon Erzgebirge near Schneeberg, and Freiberg; in Bohemia, at Joachimsthal; in Thuringia, at Saalfeld; in Steyermark near Schladming; in Hungary, France, and England.
Since the manufacture of German silver, or Argentane, became an object of commercial importance, the extraction of nickel has been undertaken upon a considerable scale. The cobalt ores are its most fruitful sources, and they are now treated by the method of Wöhler, to effect the separation of the two metals. The arsenic is expelled by roasting the powdered speise first by itself, next with the addition of charcoal powder, till the garlic smell be no longer perceived. The residuum is to be mixed with three parts of sulphur and one of potash, melted in a crucible with a gentle heat, and the product being edulcorated with water, leaves a powder of metallic lustre, which is a sulphuret of nickel free from arsenic; while the arsenic associated with the sulphur, and combined with the resulting sulphuret of potassium, remains dissolved. Should any arsenic still be found in the sulphuret, as may happen if the first roasting heat was too great, the above process must be repeated. The sulphuret must be finally washed, dissolved in concentrated sulphuric acid, with the addition of a little nitric, the metal must be precipitated by a carbonated alkali, and the carbonate reduced with charcoal.
In operating upon kupfernickel, or speise, in which nickel predominates, after the arsenic, iron, and copper have been separated, ammonia is to be digested upon the mixed oxides of cobalt and nickel, which will dissolve them into a blue liquor. This being diluted with distilled water deprived of its air by boiling, is to be decomposed by caustic potash, till the blue colour disappears, when the whole is to be put into a bottle tightly stoppered, and set aside to settle. The green precipitate of oxide of nickel, which slowly forms, being freed by decantation from the supernatant red solution of oxide of cobalt, is to be edulcorated and reduced to the metallic state in a crucible containing crown glass. Pure nickel in the form of a metallic powder is readily obtained by exposing its oxalate to moderate ignition.
The reduction of the oxide of nickel with charcoal requires the heat of a powerful air furnace or smith’s forge.
Nickel possesses a fine silver white colour and lustre; it is hard, but malleable, both hot and cold; may be drawn into wire 1⁄50 of an inch, and rolled into plates 1⁄500 of an inch thick. A small quantity of arsenic destroys its ductility. When fused it has a specific gravity of 8·279, and when hammered, of 8·66 or 8·82; it is susceptible of magnetism, in a somewhat inferior degree to iron, but superior to cobalt. Mariner’s compasses may be made of it. Its melting point is nearly as high as that of manganese. It is not oxidized by contact of air, but may be burned in oxygen gas.
There is one oxide and two suroxides of nickel. The oxide is of an ash-gray colour, and is obtained by precipitation with an alkali from the solution of the muriate or nitrate. The niccolous suroxide of Berzelius is black, and may be procured by exposing the nitrate to a heat under redness. The niccolic suroxide has a dirty pale green colour; but its identity is doubtful.
NICOTIANINE, is the name of an oil recently extracted from the leaves of tobacco, which possesses the smell of tobacco smoke.
NICOTINE, is a peculiar principle, obtainable from the leaves and seeds of tobacco (nicotiana tabacum), by infusing them in acidulous water, evaporating the infusion to a certain point, adding lime to it, distilling and treating the product which comes over with ether. It is colourless, has an acrimonious taste, a pungent smell, remains liquid at 20° F., mixes in all proportions with water, but is in a great measure separable from it by ether, which dissolves it abundantly. It combines with acids, and forms salts acrid and pungent like itself; the phosphate, oxalate, and tartrate being crystallizable. Nicotine causes the pupils to contract. A single drop of it is sufficient to kill a dog.