* Silver is a member of the transition metals family:
____________________________________________________________________ SILVER / Ag / 47 A soft, silvery (of course), lustrous, malleable, ductile metal with good resistance to corrosion. Its symbol Ag comes from the Latin name for the metal, "argentum". Two isotopes are found in nature, both of them stable: Ag<107/47> (52%) and Ag<109/47>. atomic weight: 107.8682 abundance: 66th density: 10.5 gm/cc melting point: 962 C boiling point: 2,212 C valence: 1 2 ____________________________________________________________________
Silver is produced at a level of a few tens of thousands of tonnes a year. It is heavily used in jewelry and cutlery, and silver salts are the basis of film photography -- though this use is marginal in the present day since film cameras are now a rarity. It is also used for electrical contacts, in dental alloys, and in certain types of "button" electrical batteries.