Tartar emetic and other antimony compounds are used in medicine and dyeing.
Amber is a fossil resin found chiefly along the shores of the Baltic. It is used in making mouthpieces for pipes, cigar holders, beads and other articles.
Arsenic. Germany, England, Canada, the United States and Spain produce the ores. Chemical laboratories transform them into the useful compounds.
Arsenopyrite (arsenic and iron sulphide), orpiment and realgar (sulphides of arsenic) and the sources of arsenic.
Arsenic (white arsenic, arsenious acid or oxide of arsenic), paris green and other compounds and salts are prepared.
Sheep dip, rat poison, insecticides, embalming fluid, pigments and dyes are prepared with arsenic compounds. Arsenic salts are used in preparing certain coal-tar colors.
Asphaltum (or mineral pitch) is a bituminous mineral substance found more or less pure, in some localities. The pitch lake of Trinidad and the Bermudez lake at the mouth of the Orinoco in Venezuela, are the largest known deposits of moderately pure asphalt. Smaller deposits of high grade occur in Utah, Cuba and the Barbadoes.
Rock asphalt consists of sandstone or limestone impregnated with asphalt. Much asphalt is produced in refining certain grades of petroleum—such as those obtained in California and Texas.
Rock asphalts are mined in France, Switzerland, Sicily, California, Kentucky and Oklahoma.
For paving rock asphalts are much used in Europe. Trinidad and Venezuelan asphalts are exported in large quantities to the United States and Europe. For paving, these lake asphalts are mixed with broken stone, sand and petroleum residuum.