Or blood-red spots diversify its green,
Or crossed with three white lines its face is seen.”
Other authors, however, endow the prase with a virtue. It was regarded by some as a beauty charm for married women and for the mothers of brides. It resembles the beryl in its clear form, but it is duller. It is translucent and, as its name indicates, leek-green in colour. At one time it was believed to be the matrix of the emerald, whence it was called “Mother of Emerald.” It is under the zodiacal Taurus.
“Named from the fire the yellow pyrite spurns
The touch of man, and to be handled scorns:
Touch it with trembling hand and cautious arm
For, tightly grasped, it burns the closed palm.”
The word is found also as pyrit, pirrite, and old writers of the 16th century were especially fond of using pyrit stone. It is derived from the Greek PUR, fire, and is allied to the fire stone family (Pyrites Lithos) noted by Isidore of Seville (6th and 7th centuries) in his philosophical fragments from the more ancient writers. He identifies the black pyrites of Pliny in a black Persian stone which, if fractured, and held in the hand, burns. It is assumed from the frequent occurrence of pieces of pyrites in prehistoric mounds that primitive man used the substance for kindling fires. Later we find it employed before the introduction of flint in wheel lock fire arms when, in the same manner, it threw out sparks of fire when energetically struck on steel. The ancients had a theory that pyrite was the seed or original matter of minerals, and we find it in rocks of every age. To mining people it is known as Mundic. Auriferous pyrite which occurs in auriferous countries contains certain quantities of gold, sometimes worth winning, and was known as King of the Pyrites. The action of water and air makes it troublesome in coal-mining districts. It is then changed into sulphate of iron (vitriol) and fires the mines. Chambers (1866) mentions that “at Quarreltown in Renfrewshire a deep hollow may still be seen where about a century ago the ground fell in in consequence of a subterranean fire thus kindled.” Theophrastus, the great Greek naturalist and philosopher of the 3rd century, before the Christian era, mentions in his work on stones the burning pyrite under the name Spinon which, he says, is contained in certain mines and which, if crushed, watered and exposed to the rays of the sun, bursts into flame. The French call this stone Pierre de Santé (Stone of Health), because it was said that it is affected by the health of the wearer. The white iron pyrites, known as Marcasite, is of similar composition to the ordinary pyrite (Iron Disulphide) but it takes on the orthorhombic form of crystallization instead of the usual cube form. This word is also found written as markasit, marquesite. The stone was largely used for jewel ornamentation. Oliver Goldsmith, in “She Stoops to Conquer,” says: “Half the ladies of our acquaintance carry their jewels to town and bring nothing but paste and marcasites back.” Eden in 1555 wrote that “Marchasites are flowers of metals by the colours whereof the kyndes of metals are known.” Mr. William Jones mentions a ring in the possession of a clergyman which is made of two hearts surmounted by a crown set with marcasites. Rabbi Chael says that a man on horseback holding a bridle and bent bow engraved on pyrites makes the wearer irresistible in war. These stones are martial according to astrology and are attached to the zodiacal Scorpio.
PYROPE. (See [GARNET].)