Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Brett
Well, a lot of mercury compounds are red, including cinnabar and mercuric oxide. Often a brilliant orangey-red: cinnibar is used as a pigment under the name "vermilion". But it's news to me that any of them is known as "red mercury". Though of course triplumbic tetroxide is well known as "red lead".
|
Lavoisier refers to it as red mercury. Admittedly he moves away from that nomenclature quickly in his attempt to establish a coherent system, but the reference is there, especially in alchemical tradition.