Queries. Yellow bronze-powder.

Manufacturer and builder 1, 1869

D. B. of Massachusetts.
- "Please give me the manner of making yellow bronze-powder. I hear it is made of tin: is this so?"

Most text-books on chemistry will tell you that the common yellow bronze-powder used in imitating brass or gilding is a bisulphide of tin. This is true. In order to make it, expose to a low red heat, in a glass flask, twelve parts of block tin, six of mercury, six of sal-ammoniac, and seven of flowers of sulphur. These different substances are then fused by the heat. Of the compounds, sulphide of mercury or vermillion, protochloride of tin, and bisulphide of tin formed, the last is not volatile and remains behind in the flask; the first two are sublimed with some of the sal-ammoniac. This preparation of tin is also called mosaic gold, and, if successfully made, consists of brilliant gold-colored scales.