SG Heritage Dictionary

Pyrite [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

1. plural pyrites. [Gr., fire.] Fire-stone; a genus of inflammable substances composed of sulphur and iron or other metal; a sulphuret of iron or other metal.

2. Hence sable coal his massy couch extends, and stars of gold the sparkling pyrite blends.

3. [I have anglicized this word, according to Darwin and the French mineralogists; making pyrites a regular plural.]

Pyrite [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

A common mineral of a pale brass-yellow color and brilliant metallic luster, crystallizing in the isometric system; iron pyrites; iron disulphide.

Pyrites [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

A name given to a number of metallic minerals, sulphides of iron, copper, cobalt, nickel, and tin, of a white or yellowish color.

Pyrites [Plural] Webster's Dictionary 1913

of Pyrite

Pyrites Encyclopedia Britannica

PYRITES (from πvp, fire), a name applied to the native bisulphide of iron, which occurs as a yellow metallic mineral, sufficiently hard to emit sparks when struck with either flint or steel. Nodules of pyrites are common in the lower beds of Chalk, and fragments of these nodules have occasionally been found on prehistoric sites under circumstances which suggest that the mineral was used as a fire-producing medium at a very early period of human culture. Even in late historic time it was often employed instead of flint, as in some of the old wheel-lock guns, whence it came to be known in France as “pierre d’arquebuse.” It was afterwards found that pyrites might be made available as a source of sulphur, oil of vitriol, and other chemical products; and the mineral thus acquired such importance that in 1725 it was made the subject of a special treatise by Dr J. F. Henckel, of Freiberg in Saxony. In 1757 an English translation of this work appeared under the title of Pyritologia; or a History of the Pyrites, the Principal Body in the Mineral Kingdom....

By modern mineralogists the term “pyrites” has been extended to a number of metallic sulphides, and it is therefore now used rather as a group-name than as the specific designation of a mineral. Hence the typical pyrites is often distinguished as “iron pyrites,” while other members of the group are known as “copper pyrites,” “cobalt pyrites,” “arsenical pyrites,” &c. When, however, the term “pyrites” is used without any qualifying prefix it invariably denotes the original iron pyrites, a mineral which is often known to miners as “mundic,” and to mineralogists as “pyrite,” the final letter of the original word being omitted to bring the spelling into harmony with that of the names of many other minerals.

Iron pyrites, though containing nearly half its weight of iron, is of no importance as an ore of that metal; but the mineral is extensively worked for the sake of the sulphur which it contains, whence it is sometimes known as “sulphur ore.” Large quantities of this ore have been worked in the vale of Avoca, in county Wicklow, Ireland. But by far the

most important variety of the mineral is a “cupreous iron pyrites,” which for many years past has been wrought on an enormous scale in Spain and Portugal. This ore seems to be an intimate mixture of iron pyrites with a small quantity of copper pyrites, the proportion of metallic copper being generally less than 3 per cent. Notwithstanding the poorness of the ore, the copper is profitably extracted by wet processes. There is also present a small quantity of silver (20 to 35 dwt. per ton), with a trace of gold. The deposits of this cupreous pyrites are of enormous magnitude, and occur at the junction of porphyritic rocks with clay-slate of Devonian age. The principal Spanish mines are those of Rio Tinto, Tharsis, and Calanas in the province of Huelva; whilst the most important of the Portuguese mines is that of San Domingos in the province of Alemtejo. There is ample proof that some of these pyritic deposits were worked by the ancient Romans.

The quantity of cupreous and other iron pyrites imported into Great Britain during the year 1883—principally from Spain and Portugal, but partly from Norway and elsewhere —was 601,288 tons, of the declared value of £1,356,083. But this quantity had been exceeded in several previous years, notably in 1880 and 1877. The quantity of iron pyrites raised in the United Kingdom in 1883 amounted to 27,672 tons, of the value (at the mine) of £17,467.

See Iron, vol. xiii. pp. 280, 288; Copper, vol. vi. p. 347; Marcasite, vol. XV. p. 532; and Mineralogy, vol. xvi. pp. 390, 393. For details of the Rio Tinto pyrites, see A Treatise on Ore-Deposits, by J. Arthur Phillips, 1884.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 20, p. 128
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