CIBDELOSTRACIA, an old term in Natural History, including earthy spars, destitute of transparency, formed into thin plates, and usually found coating over the sides of fissures, and other cavities of stones with congeries of them to great extent, and of plain or botryoid surfaces.
Of these there are usually reckoned seven kinds: the first the hard, brownish-white cibde-lostracium, found in Germany: the second is the hard, whitish cibde-lostracium, with thin crusts, and a smoother surface, found also in the Harts-forest in Germany: the third is the hard, pale-brown cibde-lostracium, with numerous very thin crusts, found in subterranean caverns in many parts of England as well as Germany: the fourth is the white, light, and friable cibde-lostracium, found also in Germany, but very rarely in any part of England: the fifth is the light, hard, pale-brown cibde-lostracium, with a smooth surface, found in almost all parts of the world: the sixth is the whitish, friable, crustaceous cibde-lostracium, with a rougher surface, frequent in Germany and England; and the seventh is the brownish-white friable cibde-lostracium, with a dusky surface, found in several parts of Ireland as well as Germany.