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&fist; Mercury forms alloys, called amalgams, with many
metals, and is thus used in applying tin foil to the backs of
mirrors, and in extracting gold and silver from their ores. It is
poisonous, and is used in medicine in the free state as in blue pill,
and in its compounds as calomel, corrosive sublimate, etc. It is the
only metal which is liquid at ordinary temperatures, and it
solidifies at about -39° Centigrade to a soft, malleable, ductile
metal.

3. (Astron.) One of the planets of the
solar system, being the one nearest the sun, from which its mean
distance is about 36,000,000 miles. Its period is 88 days, and its
diameter 3,000 miles.

4. A carrier of tidings; a newsboy; a
messenger; hence, also, a newspaper. Sir J. Stephen.
"The monthly Mercuries." Macaulay.

5. Sprightly or mercurial quality; spirit;
mutability; fickleness. [Obs.]

He was so full of mercury that he could not fix
long in any friendship, or to any design.

6. (Bot.) A plant (Mercurialis
annua), of the Spurge family, the leaves of which are sometimes
used for spinach, in Europe.


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