"It was a recent discovery, mercury combines with other materials to form an alloy that can have vastly different properties than either of the original materials. That is all I know of them though, I know more about dragon anatomy."
"I am not a chemist, there may be an explanation for that, and there may not be. I told you all I could using my limited knowledge of chemistry and without a proper lab, though my guess is that that is an amalgam."