"Pyrites" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 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 set it alight. Little intelligence ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... iron ore, uranium, mercury, pyrites, fluorspar, gypsum, zinc, lead, tungsten, copper, kaolin, ...
— The 1996 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... frequently referred to the presence of hearths, showing that they used fire. Like other rude races, it is probable that they obtained fire by the friction of one piece of wood upon another. M. Dupont found in one of the Belgium caves a piece of iron pyrites, from which, with a flint, sparks ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... both the mineral and animal kingdoms seem to concur. This most useful mineral appears to consist chiefly of vegetable matter, mixed with the remains of marine animals and marine salts, and occasionally containing a quantity of sulphuret of iron, commonly called pyrites. ...
— Conversations on Chemistry, V. 1-2 • Jane Marcet
... almost all are equally good representatives of the mythical thunderbolt. The finest specimens are long, thick, cylindrical, and gradually tapering, with a hole at one end as if on purpose to receive the shaft. Sometimes they have petrified into iron pyrites or copper compounds, shining like gold, and then they make very noble thunderbolts indeed, heavy as lead, and capable of doing profound mischief if properly directed. At other times they have crystallised in transparent spar, and then they form very beautiful objects, as smooth and polished as ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... 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 ...
— Lamarck, the Founder of Evolution - His Life and Work • Alpheus Spring Packard
... Island is a mass of sandstone superincumbent upon a quartzoze basis, and intersected by nearly vertical veins of white quartz, the surface of which was in a crystallised state. The floor of the cavern was covered with heaps of water-worn fragments of quartzoze rock containing copper pyrites, in some of which the cavities were covered by a deposit of greenish calcedony. The sides of the cavern had a stalagmitical appearance, but the recess was so dark that we could not ascertain either its formation or extent. . . . On first entering it we ...
— The History of Australian Exploration from 1788 to 1888 • Ernest Favenc
... Gildas 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
... 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 goats ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... is thought a lot of. The Geologic Survey men listen to Pitcairn. He helped them one year. He's one of those extraordinary old miners who can tell from the look of things, without even panning. When he saw that pyrites on Idaho Bar he stopped dead. 'This looks good to me!' he said, ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)
... adorned this article of furniture. On the wall ticked an old-fashioned square wooden clock. The floor was concealed by a rag carpet. So much for the East. The West contributed brilliant green copper ore, flaky white tin ore, glittering white quartz ore, shining pyrites, and one or two businesslike specimens of oxygenated quartz, all of which occupied points of exhibit on the "whatnot." Over the carpet were spread a deer skin, and a rug made from the hide of a timber wolf. Bennington ...
— The Claim Jumpers • Stewart Edward White
... would be considered a casus belli. While the two governments were exchanging diplomatic notes, fifteen patents were taken out in England for the extraction of sulphuric acid from the limestones, iron pyrites, and other mineral substances in which England abounds. But the affair being arranged with the king of Naples, nothing came of these exploitations: it was simply established, by the attempts which were made, that the extraction of sulphuric acid by the new processes could have been carried ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Boston, Sunday, January 10, 1864, to the care of Captain Field, then residing at the Tremont House. We may add that the eight finest of these specimens are now lying on the table before us, their mottled sides thickly crusted with arsenical pyrites and streaked through and through with veins and splashes of twenty-two-carat gold. Incredulity, when raised to its highest pitch, might perhaps discredit all written testimony, whether official or scientific; but we have as yet seen no case ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... 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 ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 458 - Volume 18, New Series, October 9, 1852 • Various
... 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 ...
— Elam Storm, The Wolfer - The Lost Nugget • Harry Castlemon
... all their delicate fluting and fibre, in the fine clay. One of the branches of a tree, now turned to lignite, had possessed a thick pith. This pith had decayed, and water had trickled down the hollow like a pipe. The water was full of iron pyrites, and had first lined the tube with iron crystals and then filled up the whole hollow with a frosted network of the same. There is a striking contrast between the presence and realism of these once living things still preserving the outer forms of life and the vast ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... of its lines, in rounding the sharpness of its angles, or in modifying the color of its surface; its outline was clearly marked against the sky, and its substance, smooth and polished as though fresh from a founder's mold, glittered with the metallic brilliancy that is characteristic of pyrites. It seemed impossible to come to any other conclusion but that the land before them, continent or island, had been upheaved by subterranean forces above the surface of the sea, and that it was mainly composed of the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... the various instances in which it occurs. The minerals which I remarked among the schists here as most abundant are a kind of black ironstone, exceedingly tough and hard, occurring in detached masses, and a variety of bright pyrites disseminated among the darker flagstones, either as irregularly-formed, brassy-looking concretions of small size, or spread out on their surfaces in thin leaf-like films, that resemble, in some of the specimens, the icy-foliage ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... sooner was dinner over than he followed the ladies to the library, and began searching every book on metals and minerals, till he had heaped up a pile of volumes, whence be rang the changes on oxide, pyrites, and carbonate, and octohedron crystals—names which poor Mrs. Frost had heard but too often. At last it came to certainty that he had seen the very masses containing ore; he would send one to-morrow to Illershall to be analysed, and ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Palaeolithic man picked up the flints that lay about on the surface of the ground, and chipped them into the form of his rude tools. However, the elder man was acquainted with the use of fire, which he probably obtained by striking flints on blocks of iron pyrites. Wandering about the country in families and tribes, he contrived to exist by hunting the numerous animals that inhabited the primeval forests, and has left us his weapons and tools to tell us what kind of man he was. ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... 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 part ...
— Sign Language Among North American Indians Compared With That Among Other Peoples And Deaf-Mutes • Garrick Mallery
... philosopher's stone. Naturally this turned his attention to the study of metals, and so it is not surprising to find that he succeeded in formulating a method by which metallic copper could be obtained. The material used for the purpose was copper pyrites, which was changed to an impure sulphate of copper by the action of oil of vitriol and moist air. The sulphate of copper occurred in solution, and the copper could be precipitated from it by plunging an iron bar into it. Basil Valentine recognized ...
— Old-Time Makers of Medicine • James J. Walsh
... modest in their attire, also have a leaning toward luxurious ornament. One Onthophagus decorates his corselet with Florentine bronze; another wears garnets on his wing-cases. Black above, the Mimic Geotrupes is the colour of copper pyrites below; also black in all parts exposed to the light of day, the Stercoraceous Geotrupes displays a ventral surface of a ...
— The Glow-Worm and Other Beetles • Jean Henri Fabre
... to gloat 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 used to ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... him. The accidental striking together of two flints produced a 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 in it a stick of very dry wood. The two methods employed ...
— Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric Peoples • The Marquis de Nadaillac
... 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 ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries - of the English Nation, v. 1, Northern Europe • Richard Hakluyt
... D.C., from Key West, Florida, a distance of 900 miles, through a 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 a high resistance receiver. —Contributed by Edwin ...
— The Boy Mechanic: Volume 1 - 700 Things For Boys To Do • Popular Mechanics
... Mr. Becker says, is analogous to the Japanese coal and that of Washington, but not to that of the Welsh or Pennsylvania coals. It might better be characterized as a highly carbonized lignite, likely to contain much sulphur as iron pyrites, rendering them apt to spontaneous combustion and injurious to boiler plates. Nevertheless, he says, when pyrites seams are avoided and the lignite is properly handled, it forms a valuable fuel, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... mistake the yellow iron pyrites for gold. Pyrites is brittle, while gold is malleable. You can hammer a little grain of gold into a thin sheet. Do not make the mistake, either, of thinking that the shining yellow scales of mica which you see in the sand in the bottom of a clear stream are gold. These ...
— The Western United States - A Geographical Reader • Harold Wellman Fairbanks
... plough, with a bending in his neck, and four men lying down, and holding in his hand a fox and a vulture, this, suspended about the neck, enables you to find treasures. If you find a dove, with a branch of olive in its mouth, engraved in pyrites, and mount it in a silver ring, and carry it with you, everybody will invite you to be his guest, and people will feast you much and frequently. The figure of a syren, sculptured in a jacinth, rendered the bearer invisible. A fair head, ...
— Rambles of an Archaeologist Among Old Books and in Old Places • Frederick William Fairholt
... adaptability of charcoal from various sources receives careful thought in connection with its use in gunpowder; so, too, the sulphur used for this particular purpose, and there is recommended as a source of this ingredient, the common pyrites so abundant throughout the States. Among other topics, of vital interest in these days, discussed in the continuing articles, is the manufacture of spirit from potatoes. The method employed in Germany is presented in detail after ...
— James Cutbush - An American Chemist, 1788-1823 • Edgar F. Smith
... iron or 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 ...
— The American Woman's Home • Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe
... woods were very dry, containing no Palm, Adroideae, Peppers, Orchideae or Ferns. Here, at the foot of the red cliffs, which towered imposingly above, as seen through the tree tops, are several small seams of coaly matter in the sandstone, with abundance of pyrites, sulphur, and copious efflorescences of salts of iron; but no coal. The springs from the cliffs above are charged with lime, of which enormous tuff beds are deposited on the sandstone, full of impressions of the leaves and stems of the surrounding trees, which, however, I found it very ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... the conversion of the salt into "salt cake" is made by the alkali manufacturer himself, this manufacture necessitating a large plant of "lead chambers" and accessories, and keeping up an immense trade in pyrites from Spain and Portugal. The development of the alkali trade in this country has been something colossal, and the interests involved in it and connected with it are so great that anything affecting it may safely be said to be of truly national importance, ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 611, September 17, 1887 • Various
... 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
... tenaciously to what was only the simulacrum of an occasion. A man will toil many days and nights among the mountains to find an ingot of gold, which, found, he bears home with infinite pains and just rejoicing; but he would be a fool who should lade his mules with iron-pyrites to justify his labors, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various
... (Narrative volume 1) western entrance of Careening Bay. Quartz from thin veins, with particles of an adhering rock, probably chlorite-slate. Quartz, containing disseminated hematitic iron-ore and copper pyrites. Quartz crystals, with chalcedony, from nodules in amygdaloid. Quartz with specular iron ore. Greenstone, with chalcedony and copper pyrites. A decomposed stone, probably consisting of wacke. The specimens of trap-rocks from this ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... William Bentinck, demonstrated the early efforts that had been made to produce arms capable of rapidly firing several times consecutively, without the delay of loading after each discharge. Drawings of these specimens were exhibited, comprising the match-lock, the pyrites wheel-lock, the flint-lock, down to the percussion-lock, as adapted by the author. Among the match-lock guns, some had as many as eight chambers, rotating by hand. Some of the pyrites wheel-lock ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various |
