A Dictionary of Arts: Realgar

A Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines; containing A Clear Exposition of Their Principles and Practice

by Andrew Ure, M. D.;
F. R. S. M. G. S. Lond.: M. Acad. M. S. Philad.; S. PH. DOC. N. GERM. Ranow.; Mulh. Etc. Etc.

Illustrated with nearly fifteen hundred engravings on wood
Eleventh American, From The Last London Edition.
To which is appended, a Supplement of Recent Improvements to The Present Time.

New York: D Appleton & company, 200 Broadway. Philadelphia: George S. Appleton, 148 Chestnut St.
MDCCCXLVII

1847

REALGAR, Red Orpiment. (Arsenic rouge sulphuré, Fr.; rothes schwefelarsenik, Germ.) This ore occurs in primitive mountains, associated sometimes with native arsenic, under the form of veins, efflorescences, very rarely crystalline; as also in volcanic districts; for example, at Solfaterra near Naples; or sublimed in the shape of stalactites, in the rents and craters of Etna, Vesuvius, and other volcanoes. Its spec. grav. varies from 3.3. to 3.6. It has a fine scarlet colour in mass, but orange-red in powder, whereby it is distinguishable from cinnabar. It is soft, sectile, readily scratched by the nail; its fracture is vitreous and conchoidal. It volatilizes easily before the blowpipe, emitting the garlic smell of arsenic, along with that of burning sulphur. It consists of, arsenic 70, sulphur 30, in 100 parts. It is employed sometimes as a pigment. Factitious orpiment is made by distilling, in an earthen retort, a mixture of sulphur and arsenic, of orpiment and sulphur, or of arsenious acid, sulphur, and charcoal. It has not the rich colour of the native pigment, and is much more poisonous; since, like factitious orpiment, it always contains more or less arsenious acid.