in natural history, a very beautiful foil 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 usually 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 or 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 astringent 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 to stop the hemorrhage.