Nick, we used to do the same with the trains....small pennies or pieces of granite from the sidings...fun times. As a practicing chemist, I understand the hazards with dealing with toxic substances, but some of this has got out of hand. Mercury salts are the ones to truly be worried about, and alkyl mercurys can kill you very quickly, but mercury vapour inhalation takes some time to manifest symptoms I believe....I still remember one kid in my class who thought it was funny to swallow a small drop of mercury....probably just passed right through him (I didn't ask at the time..;-)
We used benzene at school, made aspirin on the bench, threw lumps of sodium in water (with one classroom evacuation as a result...got a bit frisky that one...)....I imagine *none* of that would be allowed these days.... Nick On Thu, Feb 9, 2012 at 7:53 AM, Nick <[email protected]> wrote: > On Feb 9, 1:05 pm, Lucky <[email protected]> wrote: > > "So lots of schoolboys > > would break open a thermometer and coat the ha'penny with the > > mercury > > to make it silver and pass it off as a shilling" > > > > Hate to admit it, I was one of those boys. I was 'hero' of the class > > for a short term when I showed them that trick lol, our class was > > banned from having access to/use any mercury but had a friendly lab > > assistant (I'm sure he was a prefect) who sold us a small jar of it. > > Them were the days haha. > > Dave. > > A while ago I went back to my school on an open day - all the LAB > floors had been sealed with some sort of latex which went about 10cm > up the walls - this was because Hg had become absorbed into the > floorboards an Hg vapour was detectable in the classrooms, so all the > floors had to be sealed. > > They took away all the fun stuff - most of the conc acids, benzine, > Hg, the bottles of Na & K (under oil). No fun anymore. > > I used to put pennies on the railway lines 'cos then the trains used > to flatten them in a wedge shape as they flew out the side & stuck in > the fence - they were like razors... > > Nick > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "neonixie-l" group. > To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected]. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "neonixie-l" group. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/neonixie-l?hl=en-GB.
