Search the Dictionary

A blackish gray mineral, a sulphide of antimony, bismuth, and lead.

ale; a laying over another; -- said of thin plates or platelike substances, as of bone or minerals.

to the shape, which is like that of an antique lamp. See Terebratula. -- Safety lamp, a miner's lamp in which the flame is surrounded by fine wire gauze, preventing the kindling of dangerous explosive gases; -- called also, from Sir Humphry Davy the inventor, Davy lamp. -- To smell of the lamp, to bear marks of grea…

A mineral consisting of sulphate of lead, occurring either massive or in long slender prisms, of a greenish white or gray color.

h a composition which burns with a suffocating odor; -- used in the counter operations of miners. To break a lance, to engage in a tilt or contest.

element of the group of the earth metals, allied to aluminium. It occurs in certain rare minerals, as cerite, gadolinite, orthite, etc., and was so named from the difficulty of separating it from cerium, didymium, and other rare elements with which it is usually associated. Atomic weight 138.5. Symbol La. [Formerly wr…

An albuminous mineral of a rich blue color. Same as Lazuli, which see.

A mineral, of a white color and vitreous luster. It is a hydrous silicate of alumina and lime. Exposed to the air, it loses water, becomes opaque, and crumbles. [Written also laumonite.]

A trough used by miners to receive the powdered ore from the box where it is beaten, or for carrying water to the stamps, or other apparatus, for comminuting, or sorting, the ore.

posed new metallic element. It is said to have been discovered in pyrites, and some other minerals, and to be of a silver-white color, and malleable.

A mineral of a fine azure-blue color, usually in small rounded masses. It is essentially a silicate of alumina, lime, and soda, with some sodium sulphide, is often marked by yellow spots or veins of sulphide of iron, and is much valued for ornamental work. Called also lapis lazuli, and Armenian stone.…

A mineral of a light indigo-blue color, occurring in small masses, or in monoclinic crystals; blue spar. It is a hydrous phosphate of alumina and magnesia.

type metal. Atomic weight, 206.4. Symbol Pb (L. Plumbum). It is chiefly obtained from the mineral galena, lead sulphide.

A mineral of a yellowish or greenish white color, consisting of the sulphate and carbonate of lead; -- so called from having been first found at Leadhills, Scotland.

Zoöl.), an aphid. -- Leaf metal, metal in thin leaves, as gold, silver, or tin. -- Leaf miner (Zoöl.), any one of various small lepidopterous and dipterous insects, which, in the larval stages, burrow in and eat the parenchyma of leaves; as, the pear-tree leaf miner (Lithocolletis geminatella). -- Leaf notcher (Zoöl…

A lode; a limited mass of rock bearing valuable mineral.

A mineral having a glassy fracture, occurring in translucent trapezohedral crystals. It is a silicate of alumina and potash. It is found in the volcanic rocks of Italy, especially at Vesuvius.

The trapezohedron or tetragonal trisoctahedron; -- so called as being the form of the mineral leucite.

A mineral of a greenish yellow color; it is a silicate of glucina, lime, and soda with fluorine. Called also leucophanite.

A mineral of a color between white and steel-gray, with a metallic luster, and consisting chiefly of arsenic and iron.