Aragonite

“ In the case of the Irish Channel, the excess of calcium carbonate may be supplied by springs rising through the glacial gravels, which contain abundant pebbles of limestone.
Ammonium carbonate, again, derived from the decay of organisms, or sodium carbonate, will precipitate calcium carbonate as aragonite from the calcium sulphate and chloride, but not from the calcium bicarbonate, of salt water. Films of aragonite are at present accumulating by this process on the floor of the Black Sea, and marine oolitic grains, also consisting of aragonite, are produced by the same reaction. ”

“ An expansion takes place when aragonite is altered into dolomite, unless more of the calcium carbonate is removed than is necessary to give place to the magnesium carbonate introduced. In the change from calcite, with a density of 2·72, to dolomite, with a density of 2·85, there is, on the other hand, a shrinkage of 4·56 per cent. Where the alteration, then, takes place while the aragonite organisms still remain as aragonite, and not as calcite, an expansion rather than a contraction should occur in the substance of a reef ”

“ Aragonite is the more unstable of the two modifications of calcium carbonate. A crystal of aragonite when heated becomes converted into a granular aggregate of calcite individuals: altered crystals of this kind (paramorphs) are not infrequently met with in nature, whilst in fossil shells the original nacreous layer of aragonite has invariably been altered to calcite. From a solution of calcium carbonate in water containing carbon dioxide crystals of calcite are deposited at the ordinary temperature, but from a warm solution aragonite crystallizes out. ”

“ Clayey, composed of clay. Etym., argilla, clay.
Aragonite. A simple mineral, a variety of carbonate of lime, go called from having been first found in Arragon, in Spain.
Augite. A simple mineral of a dark geen, or black colour, which forms a constituent part of many varieties of volcanic rocks.
Avalanches. Masses of snow which, being detached from great heights in the Alps, acquire enormous bulk by fresh accumulations as they descend; and when they fall into the valleys bellow often cause great destruction. They are also called lavanges, and lavanches, in the dialects of Switzerland.
Basalt. ”

“ Apatite—essentially calcium phosphate with chlorine or fluorine; hexagonal; H. 5; luster vitreous or subresinous; colors usually greenish to bluish, characterized by a hexagonal form.
Aragonite—a calcium carbonate; differs from calcite in cleavage, and in being orthorhombic; H. 3.5–4; luster vitreous or resinous; white, also gray, yellow, green, and violet.
Asphaltum—asphalt; mineral pitch, bitumen; a natural mixture of different hydrocarbons; odor bituminous; melts at 90 to 100 degrees C.; burns with a bright flame; graduates into mineral tars and through these into petroleum ”

“ Mr. Becker mentions the interesting fact that in the caves above the ore bodies, on Ruby Hill, the crystals of aragonite are still in process of rapid formation; and Mr. Curtis is conducting accurate experiments to ascertain the rate of growth and the physical and chemical conditions attending their formation.
Tables to facilitate Chemical Calculations. Compiled by W. Dittmar, F. R. S. Second edition. London: Williams & Norgate. Pp. ”

“ Each stone is of one carat weight, and entirely limpid and without a flaw—fit, in fact, for setting, though never touched by the lapidary. Less costly, but hardly less beautiful than these, are some Aragonites from Sicily, which are strikingly thrown into relief by the pedestal of lemon-yellow crystals of sulphur upon which they are mounted. ”

“ At many other localities the mineral takes the form of radiating groups of acicular crystals, such as those from the haematite mines of west Cumberland: beautiful feathery forms have been found in a limestone cave in the Transvaal. Fibrous forms are also common. A peculiar coralloidal variety known as flosferri (“flower of iron”) consists of radially arranged fibres: magnificent snow-white specimens of this variety have long been known from the iron mines of Eisenetz in Styria. The calcareous secretions of many groups of invertebrate animals consist of aragonite (calcite is also common) ”

“ In contrast with the splendid fertility of Valencia or the south of France, the landscape of this region, like the rest of central Spain, seems almost a continuation of the north African desert area. There are, however, extensive oak, pine and beech forests in the highlands, and many beautiful oases in the deeply sunk valleys, and along the rivers, especially beside the Ebro, which is, therefore, often called the “Nile of Aragon.” In such oases the flora is exceedingly rich. Wheat, maize, rice, oil, flax and hemp, of fine quality, are grown in considerable quantities ”

“ Sere towns lie in the sere waste. The houses are clay. There are wooden doors, but windows of glass are still rare. The peasant chooses the desert bottom for his house. South and north rise the walls of the Sierras, naked as flint: and the winds sweep through his narrow passage, bringing the rigor of the rocks into the air he breathes.
This low tier of the world of Aragon has no clement weather. It has no spring and no autumn. Winter is a rigid siege: summer is fire. When the weather shifts between the seasons, the winds make a runway of the valleys. Frost, flame, storm are the angry cycle. ”

“ The little kingdom of Navarre was founded by Garcia Jimenes as early as 758, and Louis, the son of Charlemagne, drove the Moors out of Barcelona and established a Christian country there about fifty years afterwards. At length the kingdom of Aragon was founded by Ramiro I., a son of the King of Navarre, and Buesca was taken from the Moors and became the first capital of Aragon. Then the great Alonso, surnamed ‘El Batallador,’ having firmly established his power in the plains, drove the Moors out of Zaragoza in 1118, which was thenceforth the capital of Aragon. ”

“ ARAGON, or Arragon (in Span. Aragón) , a captaincy-general, and formerly a kingdom of Spain; bounded on the N. by the Pyrenees, which separate it from France, on the E. by Catalonia and Valencia, S. by Valencia, and W. by the two Castiles and Navarre. Pop. (1900) 912,711; area, 18,294 sq. m. Aragon was divided in 1833 into the provinces of Huesca, Teruel and Saragossa; an account of its modern condition is therefore given under these names, which have not, however, superseded the older designation in popular usage.
Aragon consists of a central plain, edged by mountain ranges. ”

“ Certainly, to any one coming fresh from the dug-outs, dust storms, monotonous rations, and perpetual risks of the Peninsula, the Aragon was like an Enchanted Isle. All who have campaigned in a desert land know the first physical delight of getting on board a well-equipped vessel—the plenty and variety of food, the clean cooking, the iced drinks, tablecloths for dinner, sheets in the bunks, a good chance of washing, and baths. ”

“ A narrow strip of fertile land along the rivers stands out in contrast to the desolate country beyond. Thus the Ebro flows through Aragon, among woods of silver birch and poplars, and plantations of olives and vines and maize; but on either side appears the barren country of perfectly bare reddish or brown hills of crumbling earth, like great sand-dunes, without a plant, curiously folded and scored by rushing water, with intricate, abrupt hollows and catacombs. The villages are the colour of the soil, and at no great distance are scarcely distinguishable from a bare hill-side. ”

“ Aragon is only beginning; Portugal has not even begun. ♦History of Castile and Aragon.♦ Of these three, Castile was fated to play the same part that was played by Wessex in England and by France in Gaul, to become the leading power of the peninsula. Aragon, when her growth had brought her to the Mediterranean, was to fill for a long time a greater place in general European politics than any other Spanish power. The union of Castile and Aragon was to form that great Spanish monarchy which became the terror of Europe. ”

“ It has been already noted that eastern Spain was feudal. Therefore the distinction of classes was far sharper in Aragon than in non-feudal Castile and Leon. Predial slavery, which had disappeared in Castile and Leon in the 13th century, existed unmodified in Aragon, and in its worst form, down to the Bourbon dynasty. When we are told of the freedom of Aragon, it is well to remember that it was enjoyed only by the small minority who were personally free and also privileged: by the citizens of the towns which had charters—called in Aragon the Universidades—the nobles, the gentry and the Church. ”

“ We passed out of the church, which now seemed laden with an atmosphere of human sorrow and suffering, glad to escape to the free air and pure skies of heaven. From the Cathedral Square we turned into the narrow streets with their great grey palaces and enormous courtyards all full of suggestions of the past centuries. But the mighty have fallen: Aragon has not escaped decline any more than the rest of Spain. ”

“ THE Crown of Aragon comprised the so-called kingdoms of Aragon and Valencia, the principality of Catalonia, the counties of Rosellon and Cerdana, and the Balearic Isles, with the outlying dependencies of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica. Although marriage had united the sovereigns of Castile and Aragon, the particularism born of centuries of rivalry and frequent war kept the lands jealously apart as separate nations and Ferdinand ruled individually his ancestral dominions. ”

“ Intellectual Culture.
The political institutions of Aragon, although bearing a general resemblance to those of Castile, were sufficiently dissimilar to stamp a peculiar physiognomy on the character of the nation, which still continued after it had been incorporated with the great mass of the Spanish monarchy.—It was not until the expiration of nearly five centuries after the Saracen invasion, that the little district of Aragon, growing up under the shelter of the Pyrenees, was expanded into the dimensions of the province which now bears that name. ”

“ And, although the social history of Aragon, like that of other countries in this rude age, is too often stained with deeds of violence and personal feuds, yet the state at large, under the steady operation of its laws, probably enjoyed a more uninterrupted tranquillity than fell to the lot of any other nation in Europe.
The Aragonese cortes was composed of four branches, or arms; [28] the ricos hombres, or great barons; the lesser nobles, comprehending the knights; the clergy, and the commons. The nobility of every denomination were entitled to a seat in the legislature. ”

“ If the different foreign elements contributed by the Latin peoples fuse so readily into an Argentine race, it is none the less true that Spanish metal bulks the heaviest in the ore. Language, literature, history, give a bias from which none can escape. The ancient branch transplanted to this youthful soil sends up its shoots towards another heaven, but the original sap circulates unendingly in the living tree. ”

“ They could not subdue the mountaineers of Asturias and the Basque provinces. Strong in their almost inaccessible valleys in the southern 2 slopes of the Pyrenees, the ancestors of the nobles of Aragon also held their Moslem enemies at bay. Wild as those valleys were, they were beautiful and productive. Evergreen oaks clothed the lower slopes, succeeded by pine forests, and still higher up are the bushes and trees of box so characteristic of the Pyrenees. The mountaineers had their flocks and herds, crops of barley and oats, and abundance of timber. ”

“ It ill becomes me for to wear a crown Whenas my lord is destitute himself. Why, high Alphonsus, if I should receive This crown of you, the which high love forbid, Where would yourself obtain a diadem? Naples is gone, Milan possessed is, And naught is left for you but Aragon. Alphonsus
And naught is left for me but Aragon? Yes, surely, yes, my fates have so decreed, That Aragon should be too base a thing For to obtain Alphonsus for her king. What, hear you not how that our scattered foes, Belinus, Fabius, and the Milan Duke, Are fled for succor to the Turkish court? ”

“ It will challenge the world....
The valley of the Ebro—Nile of Spain and historic artery of all her bloods—is still below. The way from Jaca down is short but steep. The wall of the Pyrenees,{95} in a few miles, drops seven thousand feet: but drops, not as northward upon smiling France—drops to desolation. Aragon which began as mountain wall becomes a yellow waste: and save for the narrow corridor of the Ebro, all Aragon is this. It is the bottom of what was once a sea. The rocks of the Pyrenees, of Catalonia, of Valencia and Castile are the rim of the dry bowl through which the Ebro trickles. ”

“ Unless Aragon could check the French expansion across the Alps its own power in the Mediterranean would be dwarfed, its vast hopes must be abandoned, and it must settle down to the inglorious life of a petty State, hemmed in on all sides by more powerful neighbours. But although too weak to vanquish France alone, a King of Aragon who could dispose of the resources of greater Castile might hope, in spite of French opposition, to dominate a united Italy, and thence look towards the illimitable east. ”

“ It all lies on the Greywacke part of the roof; the adjoining Limestone has no arragonite, but is incrusted with the usual sheets and bosses of calcite, mutilated somewhat by visitors who have taken away mementos.
"Ain't it ornamental, sur?" said our conductor; but his exclamations were still more enthusiastic when the magnesium ribbon lit up the millions of arragonite crystals that covered the roof with a glistering efflorescence. Then the flashlight blazed out, as our camera got into action, and the old man was speechless with amazement. ”

“ Valencia had been in Christian hands before: El Cid had won it rather by treachery than arms. But after the great freebooter’s death, the Moors came back. Now that Aragon sits down within its valleys, Valencia is Christian forever. It loses even its name of tributary kingdom. It becomes simply part of Aragon. Catalan blood has helped win it—for Aragon. Now Catalan, Valencian, and Castilian, led by the Great Captain of Córdoba, win Sicily and Naples—in the name of Aragon again. ”