Chemistry I One day an ancient alchemist was sitting at his and noticed a strange silvery liquid-like metal. He called several of his colleagues over to admire it. It was passed down through the years, this chemical reaction, that formed this "Quicksilver" as the alchemists called it. One day a French chemist Antoine Laurent Lavoisier tested and proclaimed it a metal. And he named it Mercury (Hg). With strong controversy from scientists around the world, Lavoisier was never given credit until after his death.. During the late nineteenth cent ....