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Poison & Salve. Actually, most traders expect mercury's price to climb, at least in the long run. Though the U.S. is the world's No. 1 mercury consumer, the nation produces less than a third of the metal it needs. It depends heavily on imports from Spain, whose 2,400-year-old Almaden mine, the world's richest, was first worked by invading Phoenicians. Both U.S. and world demand are growing faster than production, partly because of mercury's increasing use as a catalyst in the making of chlorine and caustic soda for the expanding chemical, paper and plastics industries. A corrosive poison in some forms (mercury bichloride), a therapeutic salve in others (mercury ammonium chloride), fickle mercury also goes in hefty quantities into such disparate products as dental fillings and dry-cell batteries, antibarnacle paint and electrical control apparatus. Hatmakers, however, have ceased using the stuff to soften felt. Reason: poisoned by mercury vapor, almost one U.S. hatter in ten developed shakes and mental disturbances. The resulting cliche, mad as a hatter, survives.
* Weighing 76 Ibs. each, which was originally considered the optimum weight for a slave to lift.