chrysocolla
(krɪsəʊˈkɒlə)
[see prec.]
† 1. A name meaning ‘gold-solder’, anciently given to some mineral or minerals; it may have included borax, to which the name was in later times applied; also malachite or carbonate of copper. Obs. exc. Hist.
| 1600 Holland Livy iv. xi. 1377 note, Heliogabalus..garnished them with gold, and paved the very floore with Chrysocolla. 1661 Lovell Hist. Anim. & Min. Introd. 81 Some [stones] move vomiting, as chrysocolla. 1668 Wilkins Real Char. 64 Chrysocolla, Borax. 1730 A. Gordon Maffei's Amphith. 9 Mixing Crisocolla or Terraverd with the Sand. 1768 Buys Dict. Terms Art, Chrysocolla, Gold-solder, a Mineral somewhat like Pumice stones, found in Copper-mines. 1861 C. King Ant. Gems (1866) 15 It may be that our Malachite was the Chrysocolla of the Romans, a name given to native verdigris from its use as a solder for gold work. |
2. In mod. Min. The name of a hydrous silicate of copper, green in colour, with a shining lustre, and often opal-like in texture.
Dana thinks that the chrysocolla of the ancients may have included this mineral.
| 1794 Kirwan Min. II. 134 Mountain Green. Chrysocolla. 1872 R. B. Smyth Mining Statist. 95 Impure clayey chrysocolla [silicate of copper] was found in..Bloomfield's Gully, Omeo. 1884 Dana Min. 404 Some specimens of chrysocolla are translucent. |