Not nearly as exciting as Kevin's story, but my mother tells a story about
how I accidentally broke a mercury thermometer once and was fascinated with
the little balls of liquid.  Thereafter, she had to hide the thermometers
from me, because if I found one I would break it immediately to chase the
mercury around.  Sadly, I'm not a literary genius, book collector/seller, or
anything else very exciting.

Michael


On Wed, Jul 13, 2011 at 2:28 PM, Kevin Mac Donnell <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> OK, one gets a PINT of mercury from one's playmates and doesn't ask where
> they got it.
>
> I was maybe ten years old. My friends had the mercury in a glass beaker and
> for some reason we poured it into a one-pint ice cream or milk carton. Then
> we decided to pour it back into the beaker and that's when the mishap
> occurred and they poured it all over my hands instead. Most of it beaded up
> and fell off, but my hands were very dirty and some of it stuck and got
> wiped into my blue jeans, hair, and anywhere else I thought to put them. We
> had great fun trying to salvage what we could off the wood floor, hoping
> that we could avoid creating a Environmental Superfund Cleanup Site.
>
> One of my two friends with the mercury later became a drug addict but
> recovered in his 40s, married, and is OK now. The other later went to
> prison
> for murder, was released after 20 years, and died a few years ago after he
> took himself off an organ transplant list because he thought himself
> unworthy (he grew up with a father like Pap Finn and should have lit out
> instead of killing anybody). I did light out, but never-the-less became a
> bookseller and Mark Twain collector. It was a rough neighborhood, and is
> still contaminated with about a half-pint of mercury and a few haunting
> memories.
>
> Enough Mercury. Back to Mark...
>
> Kevin
> @
> Mac Donnell Rare Books
> 9307 Glenlake Drive
> Austin TX 78730
> 512-345-4139
> Member: ABAA, ILAB
> *************************
> You may browse our books at
> www.macdonnellrarebooks.com
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fred Harwood" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 12:57 PM
> Subject: Re: Mark's exposure to mercury
>
>
> > Mercury has been used in many devices, ranging from bulb switches, to
> > pendulum weights, to sealing steam heating piping from condensate
> returns.
> > Quite a bit of mercury was used in barometers, from where the present
> > weather pressure systems got their nomenclature, such as 29.8 inches of
> > Hg.
> > Including sensitive thermometers, mercury still has many uses, including
> > small amounts in every fluorescent light bulb, a hot topic today.
> >
> > The price of mercury approximates $1,300 a flask of 76 pounds.
> >
> >
> > on 7/8/11 2:17 PM, Arianne at [log in to unmask] wrote:
> >
> >> Not to mention pints of mercury.  (Where does one run into a PINT of
> >> mercury?
> >
> > --
> > Linwood Cottage, Sheffield
> >
> > Man was made at the end of the week's work, when God was tired.
> > -- Notebook, 1903; Mark Twain, a Biography
> >
> >
> >
> > -----
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> >
>
>
>
> -----
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