Useful Knowledge: Volume 1. Minerals Or, a familiar account of the various productions of nature

It is the property of naphtha to take fire on the approach of a light, and to burn with great readiness and a white flame, leaving scarcely any residuum. The town of Broseley, i...

The ductility and tenacity of this metal, particularly when alloyed with copper, are extremely remarkable, and are fully proved by the great extent to which a very small quantit...

The cutting and polishing of gems is the work of the lapidary, and is in general thus performed:—The shape most proper to be given to any particular gem being determined on, the...

_It sometimes occurs in a state of powder, frequently in shapeless masses, and often crystallized: the primitive form of its crystals being a four─sided prism. It is not soluble...

In a powdered state this substance has long been used by the artists of India and China for the cutting and polishing of precious stones, and even of the diamond; but, though it...

We are informed by travellers, that some of the savage tribes eat steatite, either alone, or mixed with their food, to deceive hunger. The inhabitants of New Caledonia eat consi...

The greatest number of the stones which have fallen from the air have been preceded by the appearance of luminous bodies or meteors. These meteors have burst with an explosion,...

It is the peculiar quality of this substance to become so hard by heat that it will even strike fire with steel. The ductility of clay, and its property of thus hardening in the...

175. TIRIE MARBLE.—Few of the British kinds of marble have been more admired than that obtained from Tirie, one of the Western Islands of Scotland. _It is of a reddish, sometime...

_Red Lead_, or _Minium_, is a mineral substance of red colour, used for painting, and made, by a tedious and troublesome process, from massicot. For this purpose the massicot is...

221. _BOVEY COAL, BROWN COAL, or BITUMINOUS WOOD, is of brown colour, and in shape exactly resembles the stems and branches of trees, but is usually compressed. It is soft, some...

Fulminating silver requires the utmost care. It should never be put into phials, nor should it be in any way handled so as to produce much friction. It is the most dangerous pre...

Some crystals contain in their substance drops of water, or other kind of fluid; and these, as curiosities, are usually sold at a rate considerably higher than others. There are...

From the putrefying contents of stagnant water, nutriment is afforded to various living plants and insects which there supply the place of those that perish. Its taste is vapid,...

This salt, which was originally discovered by a German chemist whose name was Glauber, has a nauseously bitter and saline taste. It is found, in an efflorescent state, on meadow...

It is not of much use in the arts; but its fusibility renders the working of it very simple and easy. It is employed in the composition of some of the soft kinds of solder; and...

290. _EPSOM WATER is saline, and partakes, in some degree, of the nature and qualities of Sedlitz water, but it is by no means so powerful. It is transparent and colourless; and...

The Cave of Fingal is accessible only by sea, and is formed by ranges of massive basaltic columns, fifty feet and upwards in height. The stone of which these columns are formed...

The most valuable kinds of bloodstone are imported from the East. They are not so opaque as those which are found in Germany, and are marked with more vivid spots. As bloodstone...

15. To ascertain the _chemical properties_ of minerals, one of the most important instruments is the blow─pipe. This is a tube which terminates in a cavity as fine as a small wi...

264. SECONDARY ROCKS _are composed of, or at least contain within them, the mineralized remains of organic substances_. These must necessarily have been formed at a period subse...

Produced by Chris Curnow, Barry Abrahamsen, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by...

Gilding on iron or copper, how performed, 172 —— in or─moulu, what it is, 172 —— on silver, how performed, 172 —— on the edges of tea─cups, 173 —— wax, how made, and use of, 172...