This dissolution of Mercury by the vitriolic acid is accompanied with a very remarkable phenomenon; which is, that the acid contracts a strong smell of volatile spirit of sulphur: a notable proof that part of the phlogiston of the Mercury hath united therewith. And yet, if the Mercury be separated by means of a fixed alkali, it does not appear to have suffered any alteration. Turbith mineral is not so volatile as pure Mercury. The nitrous acid dissolves Mercury with ease. The solution is limpid and transparent, and as it grows cold shoots into crystals, which are a nitrous mercurial salt. If this solution be evaporated to dryness, the Mercury remains impregnated with a little of the acid, under the form of a red powder, which hath obtained the names of _Red Precipitate_, and _Arcanum Corallinum_. This Precipitate, as well as Turbith, is less volatile than pure Mercury. If this solution of Mercury be mixed with a solution of Copper, made likewise in the nitrous acid, and the mixture evaporated to dryness, there will remain a green powder called _Green Precipitate_. These precipitates are caustic and corrosive; and are used as such in surgery. Though Mercury be dissolved more easily and completely by the nitrous acid than by the vitriolic, yet it has a greater affinity with the latter than with the former: for if a vitriolic acid be poured into a solution of Mercury in spirit of nitre, the Mercury will quit the latter acid in which it was dissolved, and join the other which was added. The same thing happens when the marine acid is employed instead of the vitriolic. Mercury combined with spirit of salt forms a singular body; a metalline salt which shoots into long crystals, pointed like daggers. This salt is volatile, and sublimes easily without decomposition. It is moreover the most violent of all the corrosives hitherto discovered by Chymistry. It is called _Corrosive Sublimate_, because it must absolutely be sublimed to make the combination perfect. There are several ways of doing this: but the operation will never fail, if the Mercury be rarefied into vapours, and meet with the marine acid in a similar state. Corrosive Sublimate is dissolved by water, but in very small quantities only. It is decompounded by fixed alkalis, which precipitate the Mercury in a reddish yellow powder, called, on account of its colour, _Yellow Precipitate_. If Corrosive Sublimate be mixed with tin, and the compound distilled, a liquor comes over which continually emits abundance of dense fumes, and, from the name of its inventor, is called the _Smoking Liquor of Libavius_. This liquor is no other than the tin combined with the marine acid of the Corrosive Sublimate, which therefore it hath actually decompounded: whence it follows, that this acid hath a greater affinity with tin than with Mercury.