The "old timers" back in the gold rush days that used a mercury "sponge" to pick up the gold dust out of their pans also were forming an amalgam of mercury and gold by doing this. The gold was suspended in the glob of mercury. To separate the mercury from the gold to sell off the gold, the prospectors would do the absolute worst thing in the world to do with mercury and that was to boil it. Yep put their sponge in a pan over a fire and heat the mercury until it turned into mercury vapor and vapored off into the air. Just where they were while this happened is anyone's guess, but turning mercury metal into mercury vapor is the best known way to poison yourself with mercury. No wonder so many old prospector's are always depicted as crazy old coots.
We recently held an company two day 'offsite' for all of our managers at St. Mary's Art Center in Virginia City, Nevada. The place was originally built in 1875 as a hospital to serve the silver and gold miners. The place feels like it is haunted with crazy old coots. I am assuming back then the nurses had no idea what was causing the problems.The "old timers" back in the gold rush days that used a mercury "sponge" to pick up the gold dust out of their pans also were forming an amalgam of mercury and gold by doing this. The gold was suspended in the glob of mercury. To separate the mercury from the gold to sell off the gold, the prospectors would do the absolute worst thing in the world to do with mercury and that was to boil it. Yep put their sponge in a pan over a fire and heat the mercury until it turned into mercury vapor and vapored off into the air. Just where they were while this happened is anyone's guess, but turning mercury metal into mercury vapor is the best known way to poison yourself with mercury. No wonder so many old prospector's are always depicted as crazy old coots.