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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