[see prec.]
† 1. A name meaning ‘gold-solder,’ anciently given to some mineral or minerals; it may have included borax, to which the name was in later times applied; also malachite or carbonate of copper. Obs. exc. Hist.
1600. Holland, Livy, IV. xi. 1377, note. Heliogabalus … garnished them with gold, and paved the very floore with Chrysocolla.
1661. Lovell, Hist. Anim. & Min., Introd. 81. Some [stones] move vomiting, as chrysocolla.
1668. Wilkins, Real Char., 64. Chrysocolla, Borax.
1730. A. Gordon, Maffei’s Amphith., 9. Their mixing Crisocolla or Terraverd with the Sand.
1768. E. Buys, Dict. Terms Art, Chrysocolla, Gold-solder, a Mineral somewhat like Pumice stones, found in Copper-mines.
1861. C. W. King, Ant. Gems (1866), 15. It may be that our Malachite was the Chrysocolla of the Romans, a name given to native verdigris from its use as a solder for gold work.
2. In mod. Min. The name of a hydrous silicate of copper, green in color, with a shining luster, and often opal-like in texture.
Dana thinks that the chrysocolla of the ancients may have included this mineral.
1794. Kirwan, Min., II. 134. Mountain Green. Chrysocolla.
1872. R. B. Smyth, Mining Statist., 95. Impure clayey chrysocolla [silicate of copper] was found in … Bloomfield’s Gully, Omeo.
1884. Dana, Min., 404. Some specimens of chrysocolla are translucent.
