Mercury (element) long periods at elevated temperatures. It reverts to the elements upon heating near 400 °C, as was demonstrated by Joseph Priestley in an early synthesis of pure oxygen. Hydroxides of mercury are poorly characterized, as they are for its neighbors gold and silver. Being a soft metal, mercury forms very stable derivatives with the heavier chalcogens. Preeminent is mercury(II) sulfide, HgS, which occurs in nature as the ore cinnabar and is the brilliant pigment vermillion. Like ZnS, HgS crystallizes in two forms, the reddish cubic form and the black zinc blende form. The latter sometimes occurs naturally as metacinnabar. Mercury(II)
USS Cinnabar (IX-163) was en route to Okinawa during the typhoon at sea 30 September to 2 October. On 9 October 1945 during Typhoon Louise she went aground at Baten Ko, Buckner Bay, Okinawa. She was stricken from the Naval Vessel Register on 3 January 1946, returned to her owner at Okinawa, and subsequently sold. USS Cinnabar (IX-163) USS "Cinnabar" (IX-163), a designated an unclassified miscellaneous vessel, was the only ship of the United States Navy to be named for cinnabar. Her keel was laid down in 1944. She was acquired on a loan-charter basis from the War Shipping Administration and placed in