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Bismuth:
A metal with a yellowish or reddish-white color and a lamellar texture
that is somewhat harder than lead and scarcely if at all, malleable,
being so brittle as to break
easily under the hammer and reducible to powder. It is usually in
foliated granular or arborescent forms, opaque and metallic. It fuses
easily and is useful in the arts and manufactures.
Bismuthinite:
Bismuth Tri-Sulphide. A very rare mineral containing 81% Bismuth,
occurring usually massive with a foliated or fibrous structure. Color
lead-gray, with a yellowish or iridescent tarnish. It is used in the
manufacture of low fusing alloys, which are used in safety-plugs for
boilers and automatic fire sprinklers. Is found in Saxony, Cornwall,
and also in Utah, North Carolina and Connecticut.
Bloodstone or Quartz dotted with red spots of Jasper which re-Heliotrope: semble drops of blood. It has been used to some extent for engraved gems.
Boracite: A
mineral composed of Boracic Acid and Magnesia. It is considered an
interesting mineral on account of the form and internal structure not
corresponding. Its crystals have well-defined hextetrahedral symmetry
of the isometric system, and the internal structure is orthorhombic.
This is due to the fact that the substance is dimorphous. It is gray,
yellow or green, and transparent or translucent.
Boracite
is utilized in Europe as a source of Boron compounds, and is found in
Stassfurt, Hanover, Holstein, and also in Turkey. It is rare in the
United States.
Borax: Sodium
Tetraborate. A salt formed by a combination of Boracic Acid with Soda,
occurring as crystals, crystalline cement, and as incrustations on the
surface of marshes, and on the sands of deserts. This mineral has a
white, grayish or bluish color arid a sweet alkaline taste. On exposure
to air it loses water and becomes white and opaque. The principal
method of occurrence is as a deposit from salt lakes, and as an
incrustation on the surfaces of alkaline marshes overlying borax
deposits. The original deposits were the result of the evaporation of
ancient salt lakes. Until the discovery of borax in California, since
very early times it has been obtained from the salt lakes in Thibet.
It is used as an antiseptic, in the arts for soldering brass, and in
cosmetics. Borax is especially valuable as a re-agent in blowpipe
analysis; for making colored glazes and enamels for porcelains; and for
use in the laundry and bath.
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