Min. Also 8–9 erron. -yte. [ad. Sw., G., etc. zeolit, f. Gr. ζεῖν to boil, seethe + λίθος stone, -LITE; so named from its boiling and swelling under the blowpipe: see quot. 1777.] Generic name for a large and varied group of minerals, consisting of hydrous silicates in which the bases are alumina and the alkalies and alkaline earths; generally characterized by swelling up and fusing to a glass or enamel before the blowpipe, and often by gelatinizing with acids; commonly found in the cavities of igneous rocks.
Examples are ANALCITE, BREWSTERITE, CHABAZITE, HARMOTOME, NATROLITE, PHILLIPSITE, STILBITE, THOMSONITE, etc.
1777. Dict. Chem., III. X 8. Zeolites. This name is given by Mr. Cronstedt to a stone described by him in the Transactions of the Academy of Sciences at Stockholm for the year 1756, the peculiar properties of which have induced that mineralogist to consider it as forming a distinct order of earths, called zeolites.
1777. Priestley, Exper. Air, III. 39. The sparry zeolyte from the Ferro Isles.
1803. Edin. Rev., Jan., 510. This Zeolite, found in the rocks of Edinburgh Castle. Ibid. (1804), Jan., 311. Zeolytes [see CHABAZITE].
1842. T. Graham, Elem. Chem., 145. Chabasie and other minerals of the zeolite family.
1880. Haughton, Phys. Geog., v. 214, note. Tabular trap, which … contains abundant zeolites.
Hence Zeolitic, † -ical adjs., pertaining to, consisting or of the nature of zeolite; Zeolitiform a. ‘having the form of zeolite’ (Webster, 1828); Zeolitization, transformation into a zeolite; so Zeolitize v. (in mod. Dicts.).
1828–32. Webster, *Zeolitic.
1848. Daubeny, Volcanoes (ed. 2), 18. An intimate mixture of augite and magnetic iron with a mineral of the zeolitic family.
1857. G. Bird’s Urin. Deposits (ed. 5), 231. Four-sided prisms, which exhibited, like the zeolitic crystals, beautiful coloured bands, when examined with polarized light.
1807. Headrick, Arran, 86. *Zeolitical concretions.
1891. Cent. Dict., *Zeolitization, the process by which a mineral is converted into a zeolite by alteration—for example, nepheline into thomsonite.
