In 1885 the brothers Cowles patented a process for the electrothermal reduction of oxidized ores by exposure to an intense current of electricity when admixed with carbon in a retort.
The former is found, generally mixed with iron, copper and arsenic oxides, in Bohemia, Siberia, Cornwall, France (Meymac) and other localities; it also occurs admixed with bismuth carbonate and hydrate.
Second in importance is the carbonate, calamine (q.v.) or zinc spar, which at one time was the principal ore; it almost invariably contains the carbonates of cadmium, iron, manganese, magnesium and calcium, and may be contaminated with clay, oxides of iron, galena and calcite; "white calamine" owes its colour to much clay; "red calamine" to admixed iron and manganese oxides.
In these processes the electric current is used solely to generate heat, either to induce chemical reactions between admixed substances, or to produce a physical (allotropic) modification of a given substance.
The usual method is to make a mixture of amorphous phosphorus and a large excess of iodine and then to allow water to drop slowly upon it; the reaction starts readily, and the gas obtained can be freed from any admixed iodine vapour by passing it through a tube containing some amorphous phosphorus.