Environments

摘要

Copper was the first metallic element that I became familiar with in school labs, as distinct from the more common domestic iron (in the form of fireplace tools) and aluminium (in the form of saucepans) in the family home. Copper sulfate, with its striking blue-coloured crystals, is a substance forever associated in my mind with the earliest concepts of a 'compound', and the burnished copper pots and pans hanging on the walls of refurbished old pubs are a reminder of those remote pre-Iron Age periods of mining and refining.