From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordA metal-bearing stone described through the production of brass.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 13; facsimile PDF page 341.
Historical definition
Calcitis is a stone from which brass is boiled.
Meaning
The definition identifies its stone through a process and resulting metal rather than by colour or shape. The historical verb “boiled” should remain visible because it is the account’s description of the working. It does not, by itself, establish a complete smelting procedure or a modern mineral species.
A reader should distinguish Calcitis, the starting stone in this sentence, from the brass said to be obtained from it. That simple source/product distinction prevents a lexical gloss from being mistaken for an equation between ore and finished metal.
Places to read
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 13; facsimile PDF page 341 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary (1650), s.v. Calcitis ; compare Æs, Fusio