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Pyrites   Listen
noun
Pyrites  n.  (Min.) A name given to a number of metallic minerals, sulphides of iron, copper, cobalt, nickel, and tin, of a white or yellowish color. Note: The term was originally applied to the mineral pyrite, or iron pyrites, in allusion to its giving sparks when struck with steel.
Arsenical pyrites, arsenopyrite.
Auriferous pyrites. See under Auriferous.
Capillary pyrites, millerite.
Common pyrites, isometric iron disulphide; pyrite.
Hair pyrites, millerite.
Iron pyrites. See Pyrite.
Magnetic pyrites, pyrrhotite.
Tin pyrites, stannite.
White iron pyrites, orthorhombic iron disulphide; marcasite. This includes cockscomb pyrites (a variety of marcasite, named in allusion to its form), spear pyrites, etc.
Yellow pyrites, or Copper pyrites, the sulphide of copper and iron; chalcopyrite.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Pyrites" Quotes from Famous Books



... Iron pyrites. It is found on several of the mountainous islands of western Tierra del Fuego, and is much-prized by the natives for the purpose indicated. Being scarce in most places, it is an article of inter-tribal commerce, and is eagerly purchased by ...
— The Land of Fire - A Tale of Adventure • Mayne Reid

... about the place, growing in magnitude as the years passed on, and inspiring many a simple heart with that blind faith and patience necessary to spend one's life chipping at rocks well nigh innocent of pyrites, and sluicing gravel which sometimes carries a grain to the dish—for, after the first-comers had gone back to civilization, there were many who ...
— Colonial Born - A tale of the Queensland bush • G. Firth Scott

... been buried with the dead. Here, as there, they consisted of beautifully decorated earthenware jars and bowls, some of them in bizarre representations of animal and human forms, besides stone implements, shell beads, pieces of pyrites and turquoise, all being ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz

... sulphide of carbon having now become so important a commercial product, and being employed for so large a number of industrial purposes, it has been found more economical to substitute coke for charcoal and pyrites for brimstone. ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various

... who was one of the greatest alchemists of the 16th century, discovered many of the properties of the metal antimony, and prepared and examined many compounds of that metal; he made green vitriol from pyrites, brandy from fermented grape-juice, fulminating gold, sulphide of potash, and spirits of salt; he made and used baths of artificial mineral waters, and he prepared various metals by what are now called wet ...
— The Story of Alchemy and the Beginnings of Chemistry • M. M. Pattison Muir

... upon his wealth. The light of dawn fell on a heap of gray dust, a few brassy looking particles showing here and there. The curse of the ghost had been of power and the silver was silver no more. Mineralogists say that the nodules are iron pyrites. Perhaps so; but old residents know that they ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner

... the valley of the Trois Pistoles. To render the analogy more complete, in the valley of the outlet of the Little Lake (Temiscouata) was found a vein of metalliferous quartz charged with peroxide of iron, evidently arising from the decomposition of pyrites, being in fact the same as the matrix of the gold which has been traced in the talcose slate formation from Georgia to Vermont; and on the western shore of the Temiscouata Lake, about a mile to the south of Fort Ingall, lie great masses of granular carbonate of lime, identically resembling the white ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson

... a number of mineralogical specimens from Mr. Johnston, which had been collected by him at various times in the vicinity. Among them were specimens of copper pyrites in quartz, sulphate of strontian, foliated gypsum, and numerous calcareous petrifactions. He also presented me a fine antler of the Caribo, or American reindeer, a species which is found to inhabit this region. This animal is called ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft

... on of porphyry walls and contact veins, gray copper and ruby silver, and sulphurets and pyrites of iron, but when my eye kindled with the majestic beauty of these eternal battlements and my voice trembled a little with awe and wonder; while my heart throbbed and thrilled in the midst of nature's eloquent, golden silence, this man sat there like an Etruscan ham and refused ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye

... coal, lead, tungsten, zinc, graphite, magnesite, iron ore, copper, gold, pyrites, ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency

... devouring element." [Got roasted.] A yellow mineral had been discovered on the Doolittle farm, which, by the report of those who had seen it, bore a strong resemblance to California gold ore. Much excitement in the neighborhood in consequence [Idiots! Iron pyrites!] A hen at Four Corners had just laid an egg measuring 7 by 8 inches. Fetch on your biddies! [Editorial wit!] A man had shot an eagle measuring six feet and a half from tip to tip of his wings.—Crops suffering for want of rain [Always just so. "Dry times, Father Noah!"] The editors had received ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... River, so as to make it navigable for small boats. Iron ore has been discovered on the slope of Mt. Isabel de Torres behind the city of Puerto Plata, limonite deposits at various places in Santo Domingo province, and a rich black iron oxide on the upper Ozama River. A layer of iron pyrites extending from Los Llanos all the way to Sabana la Mar was believed by its discoverers to be a gold mine. The central ridge of Santo Domingo is part of the same mountain chain which extends through Santiago province in Cuba where enormous quantities of iron are ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich

... coast upon which no living eyes had ever rested. Straight from the ocean's depths rose towering cliffs, shot with brown and blues and greens—withered moss and lichen and the verdigris of copper, and everywhere the rusty ocher of iron pyrites. The cliff-tops, though ragged, were of such uniform height as to suggest the boundaries of a great plateau, and now and again we caught glimpses of verdure topping the rocky escarpment, as though bush or jungle-land had pushed ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... addition that of the gases liberated by the decomposition of the carbonates, sulphates, and chlorides (under the combined influence of heat and water) in chamber (C), which I call for the nonce the chemical laboratory. Not alone will all earthy and alkaline, but even metallic compounds, like iron pyrites, therein contained, be rapidly decomposed on the advent of the superheated water. And from their gaseous elements being held in a confined space, they will acquire an enormous explosive power. Consequently, there is no difficulty in understanding how that on obtaining entrance into chamber ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie

... Dr. Hales's most excellent Statical Essays, I was particularly struck with that experiment of his, of which an account is given, VOL. I, p. 224. and VOL. II, p. 280. in which common air, and air generated from the Walton pyrites, by spirit of nitre, made a turbid red mixture, and in which part of the common air was absorbed; but I never expected to have the satisfaction of seeing this remarkable appearance, supposing it to be peculiar to that particular ...
— Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air • Joseph Priestley

... air, or carbonic acid gas, consists of about twenty-five parts of oxygen, and nine of carbon, devested of the mucilage and yest that rises with it. It should be recollected, that the decomposition of pyrites, the formation of nitre, respiration, fermentation, &c. are low degrees of combustion, and though it is the property of combustion to form fixed and phlogisticated airs, both the modes of doing it, and the quantity of the products, depend on the manner ...
— The American Practical Brewer and Tanner • Joseph Coppinger

... I know now there was about as much chance of finding gold in the region to which he sent me as there was of being struck by lightning, and, more than that, I couldn't have distinguished the precious metal from iron pyrites; but I had to do something to pay for my outfit, and so I went, glad to get away by myself and brood over my great loss. For I had been pretty well off for a boy of fifteen, I want you to remember, and every dollar I had made was made by the hardest ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon

... following iron ores: Hematite, brown hematite, magnetite, carbonate, and pyrites. Note the color and physical appearance of each; scratch the first four with a very hard steel point and note the color of ...
— Commercial Geography - A Book for High Schools, Commercial Courses, and Business Colleges • Jacques W. Redway

... zinciferous pyrites have to be examined, the estimation of zinc is similar to that employed in the analysis of zinc ore. The sample is exhausted with water, filtered, and, to eliminate calcium sulphate and basic iron sulphate, evaporated to dryness. It is then dissolved ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 455, September 20, 1884 • Various

... (about 5% of the island's land area) Climate: temperate, Mediterranean with hot, dry summers and cool, wet winters Terrain: central plain with mountains to north and south Natural resources: copper, pyrites, asbestos, gypsum, timber, salt, marble, clay earth pigment Land use: arable land 40%; permanent crops 7%; meadows and pastures 10%; forest and woodland 18%; other 25%; includes irrigated 10% (most irrigated ...
— The 1992 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... and forced Fort Santo Antonio to surrender on January 19, 1642. The rock is of trap, greenstone, or whinstone, which miners call iron-stone and Cornishmen 'blue elvan:' this diorite, composed of felspar and the hardest hornblende, contains granular iron and pyrites like silver. Some specimens are beautifully banded in onyx-fashion and revetted with 'spar' (quartz) of many colours, dead-white and crystalline, red and yellow. We find the same trap on the mainland. Near the smaller Akinim or Salt-pond village there is a mass threaded with quartz-veins from ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron

... green vitriol,) a bright green mineral substance, formed by the decomposition of a peculiar ore of iron, called pyrites, which is a sulphuret of iron. It is first in the form of a greenish-white powder, or crust, which is dissolved in water, and beautiful green crystals of copperas are obtained by evaporation. It is principally used in dyeing, and in making ...
— A Treatise on Domestic Economy - For the Use of Young Ladies at Home and at School • Catherine Esther Beecher

... believer in what the theater people call 'atmosphere.' Some of your facts, Mr. Ingerman, remind me of an expert's report in a mining prospectus. When tested by cyanide of potassium the gold in the ore often changes into iron pyrites. But don't hug the delusion that I shall neglect Steynholme. The murderer is there, not in London, and, unless my intellect is failing, he will be tried for his life at the next Lewes Assizes. Meanwhile, may I give you a bit ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... receiving instrument in which two pieces of quartz of different composition were used on the electrodes. In making an instrument of this kind the quartz can be purchased from a dealer in minerals. One piece must contain copper pyrites and the other zincites. The electrodes are made cupping to hold the minerals and each should have a screw adjustment to press the pieces of quartz in contact with each other. Connect as shown in the illustration, using ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics

... temperature than the difference of 243 feet between the lowest and upper gallery. This heat is the more striking when it is considered that the water is impregnated with salt; indeed, Saussure appears inclined to consider it accidental, perhaps occasioned by the combustion of pyrites, or other causes in the interior of the mountain ("Voyages dans les Alpes," tom. iv., c. 50). All experiments of this kind, indeed, are liable to error, from the frequent occurrence of warm springs, and other accidental causes of increase in temperature. The water at the bottom of deep ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... Agricola affirmeth, that in the territorie of Elbogan, about the town which is named of Falcons, that the whole bodies of Pine trees are conuerted into stone, and which is more wonderfull, that they containe, within certaine rifts, the stone called Pyrites, or the Flint. And Domitius Brusonius reporteth, that in the riuer of Silar (running by the foote of that mountain which standeth in the field of the citie in old time called Vrsence, but now Contursia) leaues and boughs of trees change into stones, & that, not ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt

... now—joost look! Vat you call dat now, my goot young friend?" He dumped out the contents of his canvas ore-sack and nodded to Denver triumphantly. "I suppose dat aindt golt, eh! Maybe I try to take advantage of you and show you what dey call fools gold—what mineralogists call pyrites of iron? No? It aindt dat? Vell, let me ask you vun question den—am I ...
— Silver and Gold - A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp • Dane Coolidge

... spark; observation taught men to obtain a similar result by the same process; a great step in advance was made, and the future of humanity was assured. M. Dupont picked up in the Chaleux Cave a kidney-shaped piece of iron pyrites, hollowed out in a peculiar manner, which had evidently been used to obtain the precious spark. The Christy collection contains a granite pebble with a hole the shape of a cup, which had evidently been used to obtain fire, by rubbing round ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac

... one specimen, which must appear most decisive of the question. It is, I believe, from an Hungarian mine. In this specimen, petro-silex, pyrites, and cinnabar, are so mixed together, and crystallised upon each other, that it is impossible to conceive any one of those bodies to have had its fluidity and concretion from a cause which had not affected the other two. Now, let those who would deny the fusion of this siliceous body explain ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

... distant unknown regions, Novaya Zemlya was of old renowned for its richness in the noble metals. The report indeed has never been confirmed, and probably was occasioned only by the occurrence of traces of ore, and the beautiful gold-glancing film of pyrites with which a number of the fossils found here are covered; but it has, notwithstanding, given occasion to a number of voyages to Novaya Zemlya, of which the first known is that of the mate JUSCHKOV, ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold

... talk to a person wholly unacquainted with these things, will he understand you? Talk to him of stamens, pistils, calyxes; of monandria, diandria, triandria; of gypsum, talc, calcareous spar, quartz, topaz, mica, garnet, pyrites, hornblende, augite, actynolite; of hexahedral, prismatic, rhomboidal, dodecahedral; of acids and alkalies; of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and carbon; of the configuration of the brain, and its relative powers; do all this, and what will he know of your meaning? So of all science. Words ...
— Lectures on Language - As Particularly Connected with English Grammar. • William S. Balch

... products of animals such as corals and molluscs are limestones, those of vegetables are humus and clay; and all of these deposits losing their less fixed principles pass into a silicious condition, and end by being reduced to quartz, which is the earthy element in its purest form. The salts, pyrites, and metals only differ from other minerals by the different circumstances under which they were accumulated, in their different proportions, and in their much greater amount of carbonic ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard

... iron; pig iron; spiegel iron. Associated words: ferriferous, ferrous, billet, ore, forge, founder, foundry, ironmaster, ironmonger, ironmongery, ironsmith, ironware, irony, ironbound, pyrites, metallurgy, metallurgist, siderurgy, siderotechny, siderognost, siderurgical, malleable, smelt, smeltery, anneal, siderite, shadrach, larget, manganese, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming

... won't be. Jest polished up. Skin slicked up, hair fixed to the style, nails trimmed an' shined. Culchured. Inside you'll be yore real self. You can't take the gold out of a bit of ore any more than you can change iron pyrites inter the reel stuff. But, if the gold's goin' to be put into proper circulation, it's got ...
— Rimrock Trail • J. Allan Dunn

... resources of Azerbaijan are said to be considerable, iron being found in rich deposits of hematite; sulphur, copper and arsenical pyrites, bitumen, lignite, salt, mineral, ferruginous and sulphurous springs, and variegated marble. A similar geological formation is found extending to Hamadan, where beds of lignite and anthracite exist, and fine marbles and granites ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... it. Accordingly, he had taken a preliminary Treatise on Mineralogy in hand, and puzzled his brains in order to converse learnedly. "My land," quoth he, "is Silesia, and has a great bed of sulphuret of pyrites." The poor gentleman, who had a vast opinion of himself and always contradicted everybody about everything, meant that his soil contained a deal of silica, and that iron pyrites ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle

... Captain Martin seconded Newport in this; Smith protested against it; he thought Newport was no refiner, and it did torment him "to see all necessary business neglected, to fraught such a drunken ship with so much gilded durt." This was the famous load of gold that proved to be iron pyrites. ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner

... Cuba, the silicate from Brazil, the bright-blue carbonate from the sunny regions of the south, and the dark-brown oxide from the colder regions of the north. There was regulus from New Zealand, and the good old pyrites from the Cornish mines; some compounds with arsenic, antimony, and numerous other substances; and last, though in one sense not least, there was a solitary specimen of ore ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various

... one is naturally tempted to regard this as the primitive method. I doubt if this was the case. When, in Neolithic times, men commonly bury the dead, and put some of their personal property in the grave with them, the fire-kindling apparatus we find is a flint and a piece of iron pyrites. Palaeolithic man made his implements of any kind of hard and heavy stone, and it is probable that he occasionally selected iron ore for the purpose. An attempt to chip it with flint would cause sparks that might fall on inflammable material, and ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe

... to be dissolved, and there are no larger stones, and therefore the sluice is not so large, so strong, or so steep in grade, as the placer-sluice, and the riffle-bars are not so deep. In some quartz-mill sluices there are transverse riffle-bars. If the quartz has much iron or copper pyrites, the sluice is used to collect this material and save it for separation at some future time. The pyrites ordinarily contains, or is accompanied by much gold, which it protects from amalgamation. This separation of the pyrites from the pulverized rock ...
— Hittel on Gold Mines and Mining • John S. Hittell

... twinkling little gadget, then slipped it back into its pouch. Soon it would be worn out, like the other two, and then they would gain fire only by rubbing dry sticks, or hacking sparks from bits of flint or pyrites. Soon, too, the last cartridge would be fired, and then they would perforce depend for protection, as they were already doing ...
— Genesis • H. Beam Piper

... their analysis; but he sought by synthesis, i.e. by combining the separate elements and forming substances similar to those constructed by nature, to prove the accuracy of his processes and the correctness of his conclusions. Thus he formed, for instance, pumice-stone, feldspar, mica, iron pyrites, ...
— Familiar Letters of Chemistry • Justus Liebig

... of obtaining fire, the Esquimaux use two lumps of common iron pyrites, from which sparks are struck into a little leathern case containing moss well dried and rubbed between the hands. If this tinder does not readily catch, a small quantity of the white floss of the seed of the ground-willow ...
— Three Voyages for the Discovery of a Northwest Passage from the • Sir William Edward Parry

... our fingers. No?" He smiled gayly, and went out, closing the door softly after him, and Northwick drowsed. In a dream Bird came back to him with some specimens from his gold mine. Northwick could see that the yellow metal speckling the quartz was nothing but copper pyrites, but he thought it best to pretend that he believed it gold; for Bird, while he stood over him with a lamp in one hand, was feeling with the other for the buckle of Northwick's belt, as he sat up in bed. He woke in fright, and the fear did ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells

... ship-loads they brought were esteemed to be hardly worth their weight as ballast. For this disappointment the unlucky Frobisher, who had been appointed High Admiral of all lands and waters which he might discover, could not be held to blame. It was not he that had pronounced the worthless pyrites gold, and he had but obeyed orders in bringing new cargoes of this useless rubbish to add to the weight of Albion's rock-bound shores. But he could not obtain aid for a new voyage to the icy north, England for the time had lost all interest ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... "outcrop," that is, the ore literally cropped out at the surface. This outcrop is oxidized, and being free, is easily amalgamated with mercury. Deeper down in the earth comes the unoxidized zone which continues indefinitely. The iron pyrites found here are not oxidized. They hold the gold so tenaciously that they are not amalgamable. They must therefore be abstracted by some other process than with mercury. At the time that the outcrop in the Rand become exhausted, what is ...
— An African Adventure • Isaac F. Marcosson

... coal, lignite, iron ore, uranium, mercury, pyrites, fluorspar, gypsum, zinc, lead, tungsten, copper, ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.

... incantation, often pulverizing and mixing the substances mystically used, to prevent their detection. The same mixtures were employed in divination. The author particularly mentions Mandan ceremonies, in which a white "medicine" stone, as hard as pyrites, was produced by rubbing in the hand snow or the white feathers of a bird. The blowing away of the disease, considered to be introduced by a supernatural power foreign to the body, was a common ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery

... what is termed a double salt, and is composed of sulphate of alumina and sulphate of potash. The process of manufacturing it in this country is by subjecting clay slate containing iron pyrites to a calcination, when the sulphur with the iron is oxidized, becoming sulphuric acid, which, combining with the alumina of the clay, and also with the iron, becomes sulphate of alumina and iron; to this is added ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy

... manufactured from the pyritous shales of the Mianwali district, the annual output being generally about 200 to 300 tons. Similar shales containing pyrites are known to occur in other parts of this area, and possibly the industry might be considerably extended, as the annual requirements of India, judged by the import returns, exceed ten times the native production ...
— The Panjab, North-West Frontier Province, and Kashmir • Sir James McCrone Douie

... stood and worked at the samples and tied them up after analysis in little white cardboard boxes, he marked each one very carefully and neatly with the words, PYRITES: WORTHLESS. ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock

... so far pierced by the bore, but, as they are not described in the technical terms of geology, it is rather difficult to compare them with those of the old well. At a depth of 490 feet, sandstone with iron pyrites was pierced; this would probably be the ferruginous Northampton sand of the Oolite. It is at a less depth than the same stratum at the Spa well; but that was to be expected, as geologists state ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter

... under the roof for a short time, bound with a strong ivy plant. After this I infused the worms and vinegar with the warm blood and I anointed the whole clearly shining vessel; which being done, I essayed to sculp the glass with the hard stone called the Pyrites." What a pity good Theophilus had not begun with the pyrites, when he would probably have made the further discovery that his worms and ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison



Words linked to "Pyrites" :   sulfide, tin pyrites, sulphide, magnetic pyrites, copper pyrites



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