FLUORITE n.
Calcium fluoride, a mineral of many different colors, white, yellow, purple, green, red, etc., often very beautiful, crystallizing commonly in cubes with perfect octahedral cleavage; also massive. It is used as a flux. Some varieties are used for ornamental vessels. Also called fluor spar, or simply fluor.…
FRENCH a.
berry of a species of buckthorn (Rhamnus catharticus), which affords a saffron, green or purple pigment. -- French casement (Arch.) See French window, under Window. -- French chalk (Min.), a variety of granular talc; -- used for drawing lines on cloth, etc. See under Chalk. -- French cowslip (Bot.) The Primula Auri…
GALLINULE n.
allidae. They are remarkable for running rapidly over marshes and on floating plants. The purple gallinule of America is Ionornis Martinica, that of the Old World is Porphyrio porphyrio. The common European gallinule (Gallinula chloropus) is also called moor hen, water hen, water rail, moor coot, night bird, and errone…
GOLDEN a.
family Chrysochloridæ, resembling moles in form and habits. The fur is tinted with green, purple, and gold. -- Golden number (Chronol.), a number showing the year of the lunar or Metonic cycle. It is reckoned from 1 to 19, and is so called from having formerly been written in the calendar in gold. -- Golden oriole. (…
GRAIN n.
nt or hue, as crimson, scarlet, etc.; sometimes used by the poets as equivalent to Tyrian purple. All in a robe of darkest grain. Milton. Doing as the dyers do, who, having first dipped their silks in colors of less value, then give' them the last tincture of crimson in grain. Quoted by Coleridge, preface to Aids to Re…
INDIGO a.
a, or common indigo plant, the I. Anil, a larger species, and the I. disperma. -- Indigo purple, a purple obtained from indigo. -- Indigo red, a dyestuff, isomeric with indigo blue, obtained from crude indigo as a dark brown amorphous powder. -- Indigo snake (Zoöl.), the gopher snake. -- Indigo white, a white cryst…