168 DESCRIPTIONS OF MINERALS. 



Roselite is a rose-red triclinic arsenate of cobalt. 

 Bieberite or Cobalt Vitriol. Has a flesh-red or rose-red tint, and 

 astringent taste. Co 4 S + 7aq = Sulphuric acid 28*4, cobalt oxide 



Morenosite. A nickel vitriol, Ni 4 S + 7aq, having apple-green to 

 greenish- white color. Lindackerite, hydrous nickel -copper arsenate. 



Zaratite or Emerald Nickel. Incrusting, minute globular or stalac- 

 titic. Color bright emerald-green. Lustre vitreous. Transparent or 

 nearly so. H. =3-3*25. G.— 2"5-2*7. It is a nickel carbonate, con- 

 taining nearly 30 per cent, of water. B.B. infusible alone, but loses 

 its color. Occurs with chromic iron and magnesium carbonate on 

 serpentine, in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. 



Remingtonite. A hydrous cobalt carbonate, rose-colored, from 

 Finksburg, Md. 



Spherocobaltite. A cobalt carbonate, Co 3 C, from Saxony. 



Nickel Silicates. Genthite is a hydrous magnesium and nickel sili- 

 cate, of a pale apple-green color, yielding in one analysis 30 per cent, 

 of nickel oxide. From Texas, Lancaster County, Pa., and other 

 localities. Rottisite, from Rottis, Voigtland, is similar. Pimelite is 

 an impure apple-green silicate, affording in one case 15 "6 per cent, of 

 nickel oxide. Alipite is similar ; so also Garnierite (and Noumeite), 

 from New Caledonia, and worked there for nickel. 



General Remarks. — The two arsenical ores of cobalt afford the 

 greater part of the cobalt of commerce. The earthy oxide when 

 abundant is a profitable source of the metal. Erythrite (Cobalt 

 Bloom) occurs abundantly with other cobalt ores at its localities in 

 Saxony, Thuringia and Hesse Cassel. Arsenopyrite (mispickel) yields 

 at times 5 to 9 per cent, of cobalt. Cobalt is never employed in 

 the arts in a metallic state, as its alloys are brittle and unimpor- 

 tant. It is chiefly used for painting porcelain and pottery, and is 

 required for this purpose in the state of an oxide, or the silicated 

 oxide called smalt and azure. Zaffre is an impure oxide obtained in 

 the calcining of the ore with twice its weight of sand; and from it 

 the smalt and azure are produced. Nickel is worked in Germany, 

 Austria, Russia, Sweden, England, United States, and New Caledonia. 

 It is obtained largely from the copper nickel (niccolite) and chloan- 

 thite, or from an artificial product called speiss (an impure arsenide), 

 derived from roasting ores of cobalt containing nickel ; from siegenite 

 (or nickel- linnaeite), a sulphide of cobalt and nickel ; from millerite), 

 in part ; from the apple-green silicate ; and largely from pyrrhotite 

 or "magnetic iron pyrites." At the Gap Mine, near Lancaster, Pa., 

 the ore is millerite and pyrrhotite ; in Missouri, the siegenite ; in 

 New Caledonia, chiefly the silicate. 



Nickel also occurs in meteoric iron, forming an alloy with the iron, 

 which is characteristic of most meteorites. The proportion sometimes 

 exceeds 20 per cent. 



As nickel does not rust or oxidize (except when heated), it is supe- 

 rior to steel for the manufacture of many philosophical instruments. 

 A-i alloy of copper, nickel, and zinc (one-sixth to one-third nickel), 

 constitutes the German silver, or argentane. 



" German silver" is not a very recent discovery. In the reign of 

 William III., an act was passed making it felony to blanch copper in 



