Ooo very interesting. Our spontaneous interpretation of its presence on our site was that glass was made there... I'll have to read the report to see if they considered other options like hatmaking too!

Mercury poisoning, & its tendency to nibble away at the brain, led to the expression "mad as a hatter". I knew about hatmakers' use of mercury, but never knew exactly why; thanks OF.

Another example of how it's a miracle that any of our generation survived to adulthood, my mother thought nothing of letting me keep the mercury from a broken thermometer in a little plastic box to play with. Nope, no face shield, no hazmat suit, I just picked it up (or tried to) with my bare fingers.

Well, it eases my mind immensely that you all came into contact with mercury, and none of you have suffered any neuro-deficit for the experience, right? Right??? :P

Both my vet and my friend today said they played with mercury as kids; my friend said they did it in school, as a surface tension experiment. (She's a bit older than I.) Apparently, it's not dangerous to skin, unless you have an open wound. The problem is breathing in mercury vapors; it bonds to the lung tissue easily, and from there, enters the bloodstream without so much as a how-do-ya-do.

Gold processing too.

The jury's still out on that topic :rolleyes:

I dealt with a broken thermometer in my teens. The mercury was in the sink and I reached in a scooped it up, or tried to, 4895734287523847563826 times. Unfortunately mercury bonds to gold and I had a brand new engagement ring. The jeweler dipped the ring in acid to break the bonds.

Mercury was used to extract gold from crushed ore through that amalgum process, then the result was cooked to get the mercury out.

I'm on Hour 4 of a 5-hour Energy shot :nana: :wobbly:

Have I mentioned how much I love you guys, that a discussion of mercury can go on this long with anyone, let alone at a site devoted to sex?

You ROCK. :nod:

This is a unique group, yourself included.

Okay, so I wear my shirts backwards and my shoes on the wrong feet. :rolleyes2



:D

Ha, that's a turnabout.

my balls itch

Sorry, Booger, I'm not going to volunteer to scratch them, but I'm sure someone will...

/me gives Boogerface a fork and tells him to "go at it"