What was hydrophilite?

• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1979
• Subjects: Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.614.7706; http://www.minersoc.org/pages/Archive-MM/Volume_43/43-329-682a.pdf

mann (Handb. Mineral. (i813) , 857) as a coating on gypsum from the Lfineburg boracite deposit; he states that its constituents are calcium chloride and water, and that it is hygroscopic, deliquescent, very soluble in water, soluble in alcohol, and has an intensely bitter taste. Few authors have mentioned it; it does not appear in the first three editions of Dana's System, but in the 4th (p. 5o6) and 5th (App. II, p. 29) it appears as chloride of calcium. In the 6th edition, 1892, p. I6I, it is equated with Scacchi's chlorocalcite, formulated CaC12 (ignoring the water mentioned by Hausmann), and adopted as the species name. In the 7th edn. (2, 41) it appears as a doubtful chloride of calcium, with several additional localities besides Lfineburg, and the comment that it was possibly chlorocalcite, now formulated KCaCla: this it certainly was not, for KCaC13 is decomposed by alcohol, with separation of insoluble KC1, and Hausmann specifically men-tions solubility in alcohol. Hydrophilite was evi-dently one of the several hydrates of CaC12, and may have been an early find of antarcticite (6H20) or sinjarite (2H20), but remains undefined.