Name       : Cadmium
Symbol     : Cd
Atomic #   : 48
Atom weight: 112.41
Melting P. : 320.9
Boiling P. : 765
Oxidation  : +2
Pronounced : KAD-me-em
From       : Greek kadmeia, ancient name for calamine (zinc oxide)
Identified : Friedrich Strohmeyer in 1817
Appearance : Soft, malleable, blue-white metal
Note       : Used for electroplating steel and in the manufacture of
             bearings.
             
[Properties]

  Cadmium is a bluish-white, malleable and ductile metal. Like zinc, it
"cries" when rapidly bent. It can be polished to a lustrous finish, but
gradually dulls as a thin layer of oxide forms.
  Cadmium is in the middle of the IIB zinc group on the periodic table.
Zinc and cadmium share a few chemical and physical properties. Mercury, 
located just below cadmium on the periodic table, has the lowest melting
point of all the metals. Cadmium's melting point is not that low, but it
can be made to boil at about 321 degrees. Boiling cadmium gives off a
poisonous and weird, yellow-colored vapor.
  Although cadmium can be found in a few, widely scattered minerals, it is
not economically feasible to extract the metal from those minerals. Cadmium,
however, is nearly always found as an impurity in natural zinc ores.
  When zinc is refined in a blast furnace, cadmium can be found in dust
that is regularly scraped from the flues and stacks. In electrolytic zinc-
refining operations, the anode slime contains a high percentage of
cadmium metal.
