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Posted by Wayne Brown on 07/27/06 21:48
In rec.arts.tv Default User <defaultuserbr@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Phineas T Puddleduck wrote:
>
>
>> Its not just a US problem. In the UK the same holds. I remember (in
>> the 70's) having chemistry sets with magnesium, and crystal growing
>> kits.
>
> The one I had stocked sulphur, and I could buy saltpeter at the drug
> store.
>
> I think you can see where this is going.
Yep, same place I went with it. I even took some of my home-made
"mixture" to school in a plastic medicine bottle and showed it to my
friends and my (seventh-grade) science teacher. Can you imagine what
would happen today if a kid brought a prescription bottle to school,
filled with a mysterious grey powder, and it turned out to be an
explosive? Back then (1960s) I was complimented for it.
The local "hobby shop" stocked replacement materials and accessories
for chemistry sets -- chemicals, test tubes and other glassware, etc.
The chemicals came either in the original small bottles or larger bulk
containers. You could buy, among other things, bottles of mercury.
My high school chemistry classroom had a large glass jug of mercury that
was amazingly heavy. Whenever we did any experiments involving mercury,
we always poured out a few drops on the tabletop and pushed them around
with pencils. It also was fun to put a drop on a penny and rub it in
with our fingers; the resulting amalgam made the penny look like a silver
dime and gave it a "greasy" texture.
--
Wayne Brown <fwbrown@bellsouth.net> (HPCC #1104)
Þæs oferéode, ðisses swá mæg. ("That passed away, this also can.")
"Deor," from the Exeter Book (folios 100r-100v)
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