[a. F. calamine, ad. med.L. calamīna, app. (like the Ger. galmei, formerly kalmei:—calmīa) corrupted by the alchemists from L. cadmīa, Gr. καδμεία, καδμία, ‘calamine.’
Agricola supposed the name to be from calamus reed, in allusion to the slender stalactitic forms common in the cadmia fornacum (oxide of zinc from furnace chimneys).]
An ore of zinc: originally applied, like med.L. lapis calaminaris, and the cadmia of Pliny, to both the carbonate ZnCO2, and the hydrous silicate Zn2, SiO4, H2O but chiefly, in France and England, to the former, which is an abundant and important English ore of zinc. The silicate, found in Carinthia, Hungary, Belgium, New Jersey, etc., is distinguished as Siliceous or Electric Calamine.
The chemical difference between the two ores was established by Smithson in 1802; in 1807 Brongniart unfortunately chose calamine as the mineralogical name of the silicate, leaving the other ore as zinc carbonatée, which Beudant in 1832 named SMITHSONITE. This nomenclature is followed by Dana. But common English and French use (see Littré) continued to apply the name calamine to the carbonate; and in conformity with this Brooke and Miller in 1852 reversed Beudant’s use of calamine and smithsonite. With British mineralogists, chemists, miners, and manufacturers, calamine therefore means the carbonate.
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 520. Some thinke it better to wipe … the dust from the Calamine with wings.
1683. Pettus, Fleta Min., II. 18. Having here [in England] both the best Copper and Calamine of any part of Europe.
1794. R. J. Sulivan, View Nat., I. 470. Zinc in the state of calamine.
1799. G. Smith, Laborat., I. 243. Calamine is dug in mines about Mendip, &c. in the West of England.
1802. Smithson, in Phil. Trans., XCIII. 16. This calamine hence consists of—Carbonic acid, 0.352; Calx of zinc, 0.648.
1812. Sir H. Davy, Chem. Philos., 373. Calamine, which is a combination of zinc with oxygene and carbonic acid.
1839. Ure, Dict. Arts, s.v. Zinc, The principal ores of zinc are the sulphuret called blende, the silicate called calamine, and the sparry calamine, or the carbonate.
1869. Roscoe, Elem. Chem., 231. Zinc Carbonate, an insoluble substance, occurring native as calamine.
1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, III. 1187. Calamine is a mineral occurring usually in concretionary forms and compact masses, yellowish-white when pure … it is a normal carbonate of zinc…. Calamine is worked in a rich mine of galena at Holywell…. The second locality of calamine is in the magnesian limestone formation.
1868–77. Watts, Dict. Chem., V. 1067. Zinc occurs … as carbonate, forming the ore called calamine; as silicate, or siliceous calamine; as sulphide or blende.
b. attrib., as in calamine stone = lapis calaminaris (see CALAMINARIS).
1601. Holland, Pliny, II. 486. Brasse … Made … of the Chalamine stone, named otherwise Cadmia.
1761. Hume, Hist. Eng., II. xliv. 501. Oil, calaminestone, glasses … had been appropriated to monopolists.
1802. Smithson, in Phil. Trans., XCIII. 17. The smallness of these calamine crystals.
