GLAUCONITE, a mineral, green in colour, and chemically a hydrous silicate of iron and potassium. It especially occurs in the green sands and muds which are gathering at the present time on the sea bottom at many different places. The wide extension of these sands and muds was first made known by the naturalists of the “Challenger,” and it is now found that they occur in the Mediterranean as well as in the open ocean, but they have not been found in the Black Sea or in any fresh-water lakes. These deposits are not in a true sense abyssal, but are of terrigenous origin, the mud and sand being derived from the wear of the continents, transported by marine currents. The greater part of the mass consists in all cases of minerals such as quartz, felspar (often labradorite), mica, chlorite, with more or less calcite which is probably always derived from shells or other organic sources. Many accessory minerals such as tourmaline and zircon have been identified also, while augite, hornblende and other volcanic minerals occur in varying proportion as in all the sediments of the open sea. The depth in which they accumulate varies a good deal, viz. from 200 up to 2000 fathoms, but as a rule is less than 1000 fathoms, and it is believed that the most common situations are where the continental shores slope rather steeply into moderate depths of water. Many of the blue muds, which owe their colour to fine particles of sulphide of iron, contain also a small quantity of glauconite; in Globigerina oozes this substance has also been found, and in fact there exists every gradation between the glauconitic deposits and the other types of sands and muds which are found at similar depths.
The colouring matter is believed in every case to be glauconite. Other ingredients, such as lime, alumina and magnesia are usually shown to be present by the analyses, but may perhaps be regarded as non-essential: it is impossible to isolate this substance in a pure state as it occurs only in fine aggregates, mixed with other minerals. The glauconite, though crystalline, never occurs well crystallized but only as dense clusters of very minute particles which react feebly on polarized light. They have one well-marked characteristic inasmuch as they often form rounded lumps. In many cases it is certain that these are casts, which fill up the interior of empty shells of Foraminifera. They may be seen occupying these shells, and when the shell is dissolved away perfect casts of glauconite are set free. Apparently in some manner not understood, the decaying organic matter in the shell of the dead organism initiated or favoured the chemical reactions by which the glauconite was formed. That the mineral originated on the sea bottom among the sand and mud is quite certainly established by these facts; moreover, since it is so soft and friable that it is easily powdered up by pressure with the fingers, it cannot have been transported from any great distance by currents. Small rounded glauconite lumps, which are common on the sands but show no trace of having filled the chambers of Foraminifera, may have arisen by a re-deposit of broken-down casts such as have been described; probably slight movement of the deposits, occasioned by currents, may have broken up the glauconite casts and scattered the soft material through the water. Films or stains of glauconite on shells, sand grains and phosphate nodules are explained by a similar deposit of fragmental glauconite.
In a small number of Tertiary and older rocks glauconite occurs as an essential component. It is found in the Pliocene sands of Holland, the Eocene sands of Paris and the “Molasse” of Switzerland, but is much more abundant in the Lower Cretaceous rocks of N. Europe, especially in the subdivision known as the Greensand. Rounded lumps and casts like those of the green sands of the present day are plentiful in these rocks, and it is obvious that the mode of formation was in all respects the same. The green sand when weathered is brown or rusty coloured, the glauconite being oxidized to limonite. Calcareous sands or impure limestones with glauconite are also by no means rare, an example being the well-known Kentish Rag. In the Chalk-rock and Chalk-marl of some parts of England glauconite is rather frequent, and glauconitic chalk is known also in the north of France. Among the oldest rocks which contain this mineral are the Lower Silurian of the St Petersburg district, but it is very rare in the Palaeozoic formations, possibly because it undergoes crystalline change and is also liable to be oxidized and converted into other ferruginous minerals. It has been suggested that certain deposits of iron ores may owe their origin to deposits of glauconite, as for example those of the Mesabi range, Minnesota, U.S.A. (J. S. F.)
GLAUCOUS (Gr. γλαυκός, bright, gleaming), a word meaning of
a sea-green colour, in botany covered with bloom, like a plum or a
cabbage-leaf.
GLAUCUS (“bright”), the name of several figures in Greek
mythology, the most important of which are the following:
1. Glaucus, surnamed Pontius, a sea divinity. Originally a fisherman and diver of Anthedon in Boeotia, having eaten of a certain magical herb sown by Cronus, he leapt into the sea, where he was changed into a god, and endowed with the gift of unerring prophecy. According to others he sprang into the sea for love of the sea-god Melicertes, with whom he was often identified (Athenaeus vii. 296). He was worshipped not only at Anthedon, but on the coasts of Greece, Sicily and Spain, where fishermen and sailors at certain seasons watched for his arrival during the night in order to consult him (Pausanias ix. 22). In art he is depicted as a vigorous old man with long hair and beard, his body terminating in a scaly tail, his breast covered with shells and seaweed. He was said to have been the builder and pilot of the Argo, and to have been changed into a god after the fight between the Argonauts and Tyrrhenians. He assisted the expedition in various ways (Athenaeus, loc. cit.; see also Ovid, Metam. xiii. 904). Glaucus was the subject of a satyric drama by Aeschylus. He was famous for his amours, especially those with Scylla and Circe.
See the exhaustive monograph by R. Gaedechens, Glaukos der Meergott (1860), and article by the same in Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie; and for Glaucus and Scylla, E. Vinet in Annali dell’ Instituto di Correspondenza archeologica, xv. (1843).
2. Glaucus, usually surnamed Potnieus, from Potniae near Thebes, son of Sisyphus by Merope and father of Bellerophon. According to the legend he was torn to pieces by his own mares (Virgil, Georgics, iii. 267; Hyginus, Fab. 250, 273). On the isthmus of Corinth, and also at Olympia and Nemea, he was worshipped as Taraxippus (“terrifier of horses”), his ghost being said to appear and frighten the horses at the games (Pausanias vi. 20). He is closely akin to Glaucus Pontius, the frantic horses of the one probably representing the stormy waves, the other the sea in its calmer mood. He also was the subject of a lost drama of Aeschylus.
3. Glaucus, the son of Minos and Pasiphaë. When a child, while playing at ball or pursuing a mouse, he fell into a jar of honey and was smothered. His father, after a vain search for him, consulted the oracle, and was referred to the person who should suggest the aptest comparison for one of the cows of Minos which had the power of assuming three different colours. Polyidus of Argos, who had likened it to a mulberry (or bramble), which changes from white to red and then to black, soon afterwards discovered the child; but on his confessing his inability to restore him to life, he was shut up in a vault with the corpse. Here he killed a serpent which was revived by a companion, which laid a certain herb upon it. With the same herb Polyidus brought the dead Glaucus back to life. According to others, he owed his recovery to Aesculapius. The story was the subject of plays by the three great Greek tragedians, and was often represented in mimic dances.
See Hyginus, Fab. 136; Apollodorus iii. 3. 10; C. Höck, Kreta, iii. 1829; C. Eckermann, Melampus, 1840.
4. Glaucus, son of Hippolochus, and grandson of Bellerophon, mythical progenitor of the kings of Ionia. He was a Lycian prince who, along with his cousin Sarpedon, assisted Priam in the Trojan War. When he found himself opposed to Diomedes, with whom he was connected by ties of hospitality, they ceased fighting and exchanged armour. Since the equipment of Glaucus was golden and that of Diomedes brazen, the expression “golden for brazen” (Iliad, vi. 236) came to be used proverbially for a bad exchange. Glaucus was afterwards slain by Ajax.
All the above are exhaustively treated by R. Gaedechens in Ersch and Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyclopädie.
