Note 59 — Chapter XVIII · SILICON AND THE OTHER ELEMENTS OF THE FOURTH GROUP

Thorium has also been found in the form of oxide in certain pyrochlores, euxenites, monazites, and other rare minerals containing salts of niobium and phosphates. The compounds of thorium are prepared by decomposing thorite or orangeite with strong sulphuric acid at its boiling point; this renders the silica insoluble, and the thorium oxide passes into solution when the residue is treated with cold water, after having been previously boiled with water (boiling water does not dissolve the oxide of thorium). Lead and other impurities are separated by passing sulphuretted hydrogen through the solution, and the thorium hydroxide is then precipitated by ammonia. If this hydroxide be dissolved in the smallest possible amount of hydrochloric acid, and oxalic acid be then added, thorium oxalate is obtained as a white precipitate, which is insoluble in an excess of oxalic acid; this reaction is taken advantage of for separating this metal from many others. It, however, resembles the cerite metals (Chapter XVII., Note 43) in this and many other respects. The thorium hydroxide is gelatinous; on ignition it leaves an infusible oxide, ThO2, which, when fused with borax, gives crystals of the same form as stannic oxide or titanic anhydride; sp. gr. 9·86. But the basic properties are much more developed in thorium oxide than in the preceding oxides, and it does not even disengage carbonic acid when fused with sodium carbonate—that is, it is a much more energetic base than zirconium oxide. The hydrate, ThO2, however, is soluble in a solution of Na2CO3 (Chapter XVII., Note 43). Thorium chloride, ThCl4 is obtained as a distinctly crystalline sublimate when thorium oxide, mixed with charcoal, is ignited in a stream of dry chlorine. When heated with potassium, thorium chloride gives a metallic powder of thorium having a sp. gr. 11·1. It burns in air, and is but slightly soluble in dilute acids. The atomic weight of thorium was established by Chydenius and Delafontaine on the basis of the ismorphism of the double fluorides.