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Fluorite

Euclase Page of 243 Fluorite Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
FLUORINE.
113
false amethyst, when it has the transparency of this gem.
It is procured principally from England and the United States of America. It is also found in Ger­many and Italy ; that which is found in the tufa beds is beautiful and always amethystine.
In Derbyshire fluorine is cut into large vases, obelisks, columns, plates, and candlesticks, a quality being used which is indigenous to England, and with colours arranged in zones.
Fluorine was certainly known to the ancients, who made of it very elegant balsamari.
Some people think that this may have been the same substance as the celebrated murrina, of which so much has been spoken, without any decision as to its material having been arrived at. Nevertheless, it seems to me impossible with certainty to establish the identity of murrina with fluorine from the description of their qualities given by Pliny the elder, and this, especially, because to fluorine, which emits no smell, the sentence, " est aliqua in odore commendatici," is not suitable ; nor to a stone, tolerably hard, does the follow­ing apply : " ob amorem abroso ejus margine," which the same Pliny affirms of the murrina.
In any case, the ancients were ignorant of the valuable qualities of this stone.
Not till the year 1600 of our era was it adopted as a corrosive, and in 1670 the art of engraving on glass, with its assistance, was practised at Nuremberg.
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Euclase Page of 243 Fluorite
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