CINNABAR (Ger. Zinnober)

This article appears in Volume V06, Page 376 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: CHR-CLI

CINNABAR (Ger. Zinnober) , sometimes written cinnabarite, a name applied to red mercuric sulphide (HgS), or native

vermilion

VERMILION

, the common ore of mercury. The name comes from the Greek Kivval3api, used by Theophrastus, and probably applied to several distinct substances. Cinnabar is generally found in a massive, granular or earthy form, of

bright

BRIGHT, JOHN (1811-188g)
BRIGHT, SIR CHARLES TILSTON

red colour, but it occasionally occurs in crystals, with a metallic adamantine lustre. The crystals belong to the hexagonal

system

SYSTEM

, and are generally of rhombohedral habit, sometimes twinned. Cinnabar presents remarkable resemblance to

quartz

QUARTZ

in its symmetry and optical characters. Like

quartz

QUARTZ

it exhibits circular polarization, and A. Des Cloizeaux showed that it possessed fifteen times the rotatory power of quartz (see POLARIZATION OF LIGHT). Cinnabar has higher refractive power than any other known

mineral

MINERAL

, its mean index for sodium light being 3.02, whilst the index for diamonda substance of remarkable refractionis only 2.42 (see REFRACTION). The hardness of cinnabar is 3, and its specific gravity 8.998.
Cinnabar is found in all localities which yield quicksilver, notably Almaden (Spain), New Almaden (California), Idria (Austria), Landsberg, near Ober-Moschel in the

Palatinate

PALATINATE (Ger. Pfalz)

, Ripa, at the foot of the Apuan Alps (Tuscany), the

mountain

MOUNTAIN (0. Fr. montaigne; popular Lat. montanea, an adjectival form from the classical
mons
- MONS (Flemish Bergen)
, montis, whence Eng. " mount," a form usually used along with the name of an individual mountain, e.g. Mt Everest)
MOUNTAIN, THE (La Montagne)

Avala (Servia), Huancavelica (Peru), and the province of Kweichow in China, whence very fine crystals have been obtained. Cinnabar is in course of deposition at the present day from the hot waters of

Sulphur

SULPHUR

Bank, in California, and Steamboat Springs, Nevada.
Hepatic cinnabar is an impure variety from Idria in Carniola, in which the cinnabar is mixed with bituminous and earthy matter.
Metacinnabarite is a cubic form of mercuric sulphide, this compound being dimorphous.
For a general description of cinnabar, see G. F. Becker's Geology of the Quicksilver Deposits of the Pacific Slope, U.S. Geol. Surv. Monographs, No. xiii. (1888). (F. W. R.*)

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