MELANTERIA, in natural history, a very beautiful fossil, of a dense, compact, and regular texture,
and of an extremely bright pale yellow, resembling nothing so much as the purest gold. It is remarkably heavy; and is sometimes found in little irregular masses of the bigness of a pigeon's egg, which are broken with a slight blow: but it is usually met with in the form of a fine gold-coloured efflorescence on vitriolic and pyritical bodies; or in loose, shattery, and friable masses of a more dusky yellow; in which latter state it so much resembles a native sulphur, that it is frequently mistaken for one: however, it is not inflammable; but calcines in the fire to a greyish powder, which by burning longer changes to a deep and fine purple.
The Greeks used it externally, as a gentle escharotic and a styptic: they made it an ingredient in their ointments for old ulcers, and used to sprinkle the powder of it on fresh wounds in order to stop the hemorrhage.