Mercury

Mercury is the chemical element Hg, atomic number 80, commonly called quicksilver: a heavy, silvery metal and the only metallic element known to be liquid at ordinary temperature and pressure. It is found in deposits around the world, mostly as cinnabar, mercury sulphide, which ground fine gives the red pigment vermilion. It was long used in thermometers, barometers and similar instruments, though concern over its toxicity has driven much of it out of them. Cunningham gives it to the planet Mercury and calls it both projective and receptive. He rules it by earth for its weight, by water because it is liquid and by air for its quick movement. He records pools of it once held in the hand, or sealed in clear glass spheres, for scrying; a gambling talisman of a hollowed nutmeg filled with mercury and sealed, carried for luck at cards, dice and horses; and a modern protective witch bottle printed in The Witches' Almanac in 1976 or 1977, in which a small bottle of mercury sat inside bottles of water, sand, rocks and shells. He then urges readers not to use it at all, since safer and cheaper metals serve as well.