Mercury and its compounds

Mercury is a silvery-white metal that is liquid at room temperature. It freezes at -39 0C and it boils at 357 0C at atmospheric pressure. Mercury is appreciable volatile. It is odourless and not flammable. It forms a number of inorganic and organic compounds, notably mercuric and mercurous chlorides and methyl mercury.Mercury has been known since antiquity. It rarely occurs as the free metal in nature. The main ore from which mercury is extracted is cinnabar (mercuric sulphide), found predominantly in Italy and Spain. The organic and inorganic forms of mercury may inter-convert over time - organic mercury compounds may slowly decompose to form inorganic mercury while inorganic mercury compounds may be transformed into organic mercury forms by bacteria in soil and water.