Meanings of much quicksilver in English

Clay gathered up the "colors" it touched like so much quicksilver.

But these drops gathered themselves up nimbly into little shining balls, and fled off to the ground like so much quicksilver.

But all was glassy calm, each great sea, of all the orderly procession of great seas, heaving up, round-topped and mountainous, like so much quicksilver.

"Do you have any idea, Jack, how much quicksilver is stored up in these warehouses all around us?"

"This one's got too much quicksilver," he said of one, "that's why it's black." But another was the color of bran.