Your not the only one who had never heard of antimony Arch, but after checking out the net I found some great facts about antimony, much more interesting than the present uses that are included in the ARV releases. For a start the Malaysian state of Sarawak gets its name from the Malay word serewa which means antimony, there were many antimony mines there in the 19th century controlled by the Sultan of Brunei who gave Sarawak to James Brookes the white raj for helping quell an uprising. Some of the ore mined was shipped to England in the 1800's where it was used in making printers type, the letter blocks used in printing. It was actually Johannes Guttenberg the inventor of the printing press who discovered that antimony added to lead and tin made the type face clear and sharp. This is because antimony expands when cooled retaining the fine details of molds and also improving the hardness. In the 1700's antimony was popular with alchemists, it is said that Isaac Newton spent more time studying antimony than gravity, preforming experiments like dissolving oak in vinegars laced with antimony. It was also popular as a medicine in the 1700's where pills of solid antimony were used to treat constipation. The patients would root through their excretment to retrieve the pill and reuse later. In some lucky families the pills were passed down from generation to generation. Well that's enough for today boys and girls, just a bit of revision to finish off, the malay word for antimony is........?
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