mercury ore (cinnabar) and mercury
The dry liquid
Imagine a dry liquid—a liquid you can stick your finger into without
getting it wet.
There is such a liquid. It’s a melted metal that stays melted even when
it’s cool! No other metal does such a thing.
This strange, liquid metal is called mercury. It comes from a sparkly
red rock called cinnabar that is found near hot springs and volcanoes.
If you ever had your temperature taken with a fever thermometer, you
have seen one way that mercury is used. The silvery stuff inside the
thermometer is mercury. Dentists also use mercury, mixed with silver, to
fill cavities in teeth.
Mercury is full of surprises. When a little of it is poured onto a
slanting surface, the mercury doesn’t trickle down in a stream, as other
liquids do. The puddle stays together and just slides downhill! Given a
push, the puddle breaks into hundreds of tiny globs that roll like
little balls. And if the globs are all pushed together, they form a
puddle again.
Mercury was named after the Roman god Mercury, who was the swift
messenger of the gods. But because mercury moves and quivers as if it
were alive, it is sometimes called quicksilver, which means live
silver.
Mercury is a dangerous poison. It’s dangerous to handle because it might
get into your mouth and cause sickness. Factories sometimes dump wastes
containing mercury into lakes and streams. The mercury then gets into
the bodies of fish. If people eat the fish, they may get very sick or
even die.
