Cinnabar content. To produce liquid mercury (quicksilver), crushed cinnabar ore is roasted in rotary furnaces. Pure mercury separates from sulfur in this process and easily evaporates. A condensing column is used to collect the liquid metal, which is most often shipped in iron flasks. Associated modern precautions for use and handling of cinnabar arise from the toxicity of the mercury component, which was recognized as early as in ancient Rome. Because of its mercury content, cinnabar can be toxic to human beings. Though people in ancient South America often used cinnabar for art, or processed it into refined mercury (as a
Cinnabar ("kinnabari"), a Greek word most likely applied by Theophrastus to several distinct substances. Other sources say the word comes from the "shangarf" (Arabicized as "zinjifra"), a word of uncertain origin. In Latin, it was sometimes known as "minium", meaning also "red cinnamon", though both of these terms now refer specifically to lead tetroxide. Cinnabar is generally found in a massive, granular or earthy form and is bright scarlet to brick-red in color, though it occasionally occurs in crystals with a nonmetallic adamantine luster. It resembles quartz in its symmetry. It exhibits birefringence, and it has the highest refractive index of