PROCESS II.
To separate Arsenic from Sulphur.
Powder the yellow or red Arsenic which you intend to separate from its Sulphur. Moisten this powder with a Fixed Alkali resolved into a liquor. Dry the mixture gently; put it into a very tall glass cucurbit, and fit on a blind-head. Set this cucurbit in a sand-bath; warm the vessels gently, and increase the fire by degrees, till you perceive that no more Arsenic sublimes. The Arsenic, which before was yellow or red, rises into the head partly in white flowers, and partly in a compact, white, semi-transparent matter, which looks as if it were vitrified. The Sulphur combined with the Fixed Alkali remains at the bottom of the cucurbit.
OBSERVATIONS.
A Fixed Alkali hath more affinity than any metallic substance with Sulphur: so that it is not surprising Sulphur should be separated from Arsenic by its interposition. Yet there is an inconvenience attends the use of it: for it hath a great affinity with the Arsenic also, and so always retains some part thereof, which continues fixed with it. For this reason care should be taken not to mix, with sulphurated Arsenic, a greater quantity of Alkali than is necessary to absorb the Sulphur it contains. Nothing, however, but experience and repeated trials can teach us the exact quantity of Alkali that ought to be employed; because the quantity of Sulphur that may be contained in yellow or red Arsenic is indefinite.
The vessel ought to be tall, that the upper part of the head, where the Arsenical particles condense, may be the less exposed to heat. Towards the end of the operation the fire must be strongly excited, so as to make the sand red-hot; because the last portions of Arsenic that rise are strongly retained by the Fixed Alkali.
Arsenic that is grey or blackish may be depurated and whitened by the same means; because a Fixed Alkali absorbs the phlogiston likewise with great avidity. Mercury, as well as a Fixed Alkali, is an excellent additament for separating Arsenic from Sulphur. If you will use it for that purpose, reduce the sulphurated Arsenic to a very fine powder, by rubbing it a long time in a glass mortar; when it is well pulverized, let a few drops of Mercury fall upon it, by squeezing it through chamoy, and continue the trituration. The yellow or red colour of the Arsenic will insensibly change, and gradually grow darker as the Mercury incorporates with it. When the Mercury is perfectly killed, add a little more of it than you did the first time, and in the same manner: continue to triturate till it disappear; and thus go on adding more and more till the Mercury you add remain quick, and you can kill no more of it. Neither the red nor the yellow colour will then appear in the mixture; which will be grey, if it contain but a little Sulphur, and black, if a great deal.
Put this mixture into a very tall glass cucurbit; fit on a blind-head; set it in a sand-bath, and bury it in the sand as far as the contained mixture reaches. Heat the vessels, and, during the whole operation, keep up a degree of fire a little weaker than that required for subliming Cinabar. White Arsenical Flowers will adhere to the upper part of the head, amongst which will be some beautiful crystals of Arsenic; and underneath them you will find some Cinabar sublimed, but not entirely free from Arsenic. If you desire to have your Cinabar and your Arsenic purer, and more unmixed with each other, separate the upper sublimate, which is Arsenical, from the lower, which consists chiefly of Cinabar. Powder each of them coarsely, and sublime them separately each in a different cucurbit.
On this occasion the Mercury separates the Sulphur from the Arsenic, because it hath a greater affinity than Arsenic with that mineral. It is not the only metallic substance of this character: for, as hath been shewn, there are several others that have a greater affinity than Mercury with Sulphur, being able to decompose Cinabar by their interposition. Yet those metallic substances must not be substituted for Mercury in the present operation: because there is none of them but hath at the same time a very great affinity with Arsenic, or even as strong an one as they have with Sulphur; whereas Mercury will by no means unite with Arsenic.