Lupine is a genus of Leguminous plants, mostly natives of America, many of which are valued as hardy herbaceous plants by gardeners. The flowers are generally blue or purple, and are most commonly borne in terminal racemes or whorls. The leaves are digitately many foliated. Research Lupine
Camphor is a whitish translucent substance, of a granular or foliatedfracture, and somewhat unctuous to the touch, which is mostly extracted from two or three kinds of trees of the laurel tribe. It has a bitterish aromatic taste and a strong characteristic smell. In chemical character it is one of the ketones. The common camphor of the shops, is obtained from Camphora officinarum, the camphor laurel, a native of China and Japan, now naturalized in many other countries.
The common camphor is obtained from the wood by distillation and sublimation. Borneo camphor, on the other hand, is not procured by distillation, but is found in masses, secreted naturally in cavities in the trunk and greater branches. Numerous other vegetables, such as thyme, rosemary, sage, etc, are found to yield camphor by distillation.
In medicine camphor is used both as an external and internal stimulant. In small doses it acts as an anodyne and antispasmodic; in large doses it acts as a poison. Its effluvia being very noxious to insects, it is much used to protect specimens in natural history. It readily dissolves in alcohol, oils, etc, and in this way is much used as a liniment. It evaporates or volatilizes at ordinary temperatures. Camphor is also used in the manufacture of celluloid. Research Camphor
Cobalt (so named from the Greek for goblin, a demon of the mines) is a greyish-white coloured metal element with the symbol Co. It was discovered among the ore veins in Cornwall in early times and called mundic by the miners. It was identified as a metal in 1733 by Brandt. Cobalt is very brittle, of a fine close grain, compact, but easily reducible to powder. It crystallizes in parallel bundles of needles. It is never found in a pure state, but usually as an oxide, or combined with arsenic or its acid, with sulphur, iron, etc.
Its ores are arranged under the following species: arsenical cobalt, of a white colour, passing to steel grey; its texture is granular, and when heated it exhales the odour of garlic; gray cobalt, a compound of cobalt, arsenic, iron, and sulphur, of a white colour, with a tinge of red; its structure is foliated, and its crystals have a cube for their primitive form; sulphide of cobalt, compact and massive in its structure; oxide of cobalt, brown or brownish black, generally friable and earthy; sulphate and arsenate of cobalt, both of a red colour, the former soluble in water. The great use of cobalt is to give a permanent blue colour to glass and enamels upon metals, porcelain, and earthenwares. Research Cobalt
Calcite is a common mineral composing such rocks as chalk and marble. It has the formulae CaCO3 and a relative hardness of 3. It effervesces vigorously with HCl. Clear specimens exhibit double refraction. Occurs as widespread sedimentary rock masses such as limestone. Crystalline metamorphosed limestones are called marbles. Argentine is a pearlylamellar variety; aphrite is foliated or chalklike; dogtooth spar, a form in acute rhombohedral or scalenohedral crystals; calc- sinter and calc-tufa are lose or porous varieties formed in caverns or wet grounds from calcareous deposits; agaric mineral is a soft, white friable variety of similar origin; stalactite and stalagmite are varieties formed from the drillings in caverns. Iceland spar is a transparent variety, exhibiting the strong double refraction of the species, and hence is called doubly refracting spar. Research Calcite
Chlorite is a mineral group whose members usually exhibit a characteristic green colour, opaque, usually friable or easily pulverized, composed of little spangles, scales, prisms, or shining small grains, and consisting of silica, alumina, magnesia, and protoxide of iron. Chlorite is distinguished from muscovite and green phlogopite by a lack of elasticity. It has a relative hardness of 3. There are four subspecies - chlorite earth, common chlorite, chlorite slate, and foliated chlorite. Research Chlorite
Dysodile is a yellowish or greenish foliated mineral found in limestone, with remains of fish and of plants, which, when ignited, burns and emits a very bad smell. Research Dysodile
Gabbronite or gabronite is, a mineral, a variety of scapolite, occurring' in masses, whose structure is more or less foliated, or sometimes compact. Its colours are grey, bluish or greenish grey, and sometimes red. Research Gabbronite
Galena (lead sulphide) or galenite is virtually the only source of lead and an important ore of silver. It is found both in masses and crystallized in cubes, but sometimes in truncated octahedra and has the formulae PbS and a relative hardness of 3. It is a very common metallic mineral, its colour is bluish-grey, like lead, but brighter; its lustre metallic; texture foliated; fragments cubical; soft, but brittle. When found in veins that show a connection to igneous rocks, it is frequently found with silver minerals. Galena is also found in limestones either as veins or as a replacement deposit.
Galena effervesces with nitric and hydrochloric acids. For the most part it contains about 86.6 per cent of lead and 13.4 of sulphur, generally some silver, and also antimony, zinc, iron, and bismuth. Where the proportion of silver is high it is known as argentiferous galena, and worked with a view to the extraction of this metal. Galena occurs principally in the older or primary rocks, being found in England mainly in the Mountain Limestone (base of the Carboniferousformation). In the United States it is very abundant, the deposit of galena in which the mines of Illinois are situated being extensive and important. Research Galena
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Lupine
