Another option for all sorts of very small cleaning jobs is a fibreglass 
pencil. Electronics people use them for cleaning contacts and you can also 
buy them in art shops to use as rubbers (erasers in America). They look like 
a rather fat propelling pencil and contain a bundle of glass fibres which 
you use to clean as you would a pencil made of india rubber. The glass wears 
away but you can get re-fills. It's best to blow away the residue or sweep 
it away with a brush rather than your hand. Its also a very good way of 
cleaning irregular surfaces which are to be silver soldered.

I meant to add to the discussion of vermillion, that it (natural cinnabar) 
is not as permanent as people like to think. In some places mercury is mined 
by collecting the drops as they fall from the roof of the mine - this is 
cinnabar breaking down naturally (perhaps under pressure) to release native 
mercury. As with the other very heavy metal gold, there are not very many 
stable compounds of mercury.

Huw Saunders
London 

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