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Mineralogical ClassificationMispickel.

11th Jan 2019 23:37 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Does anyone know where this term came from and when the name was changed to arsenopyrite? Thank you.

11th Jan 2019 23:49 UTCThomas Lühr Expert

A swearword for arsenopyrite, used by the old miners, because they could not melt a useful metal from it.

Means something like "wrongly worked".

Remember in english "mis..." and "the pick"

Thomas

11th Jan 2019 23:51 UTCPavel Kartashov Manager

Looks like, that origin of this word comes to Saxonia of XVth century.

11th Jan 2019 23:56 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Thank you guys. Do you know when the term arsenopyrite was first used?

12th Jan 2019 00:05 UTCThomas Lühr Expert

You are right, Pavel. I'm not sure, but i think it goes back to Agricola's times. And very probably of saxonian origin too, because arsenopyrite is very common there (less important in other regions).

12th Jan 2019 00:16 UTCThomas Lühr Expert

Reiner,

I can't answer your question. I guess the term 'arsenopyrite' is a relatively modern term. In Germany was the term Arsenkies (and Arsenikalkies for Löllingite) still in use until the early 20th century.

12th Jan 2019 00:49 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

So mispickel is a German swear word then?

12th Jan 2019 01:00 UTCDoug Daniels

The name derivation header in my Dana's System suggests the first use of "arsenopyrite" as 1847.

12th Jan 2019 01:39 UTCThomas Lühr Expert

Reiner Mielke Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> So mispickel is a German swear word then?

Yes.

But not in use anymore since a long time :)

12th Jan 2019 03:05 UTCJamison K. Brizendine 🌟 Expert

Reiner here is an earlier thread when I asked the same question a year and a half ago: https://www.mindat.org/forum.php?read,104,409113,409113#msg-409113

I had encountered the term reading an article by Bob Jones:

While pyrite, marcasite, and pyrrhotite are the brassy-looking iron sulfides, yet another iron sulfide has a lovely silvery look. Early German mineralogists called it mispickel, but today we call it arsenopyrite, which tells you what element joined iron and sulfur. This iron, arsenic sulfide is fairly common and forms in quite lovely crystals. (Jones, 2005, p.42)

Rob Woodside wrote:

In the first volume of Dana 7 under Arsenopyrite (pg 316) it credits Agricola (1546) with Mistpuckel and finally Henckel (1725) with mispickel.

Joachim Esche wrote:

In Hans Lüschen: Die Namen der Steine (The name of the stones) I found the following text (roughly translated to english):

"Mißpickel is documented since the 16th century in different forms: Mieszpieckel, Mispütl, Mißpült and so on. People have interpreted this as Miß-Bühl or Miß-Buckel, probably Mist-Buckel, thai is a bad excrescent or bad lump. Regardless of the correctness of the interpretation the meaning of Mispickel was always somewhat obnoxious."

Some passages later you can read that mispickel is hindering the smelting process. "Mispickel ist ein Bleyfresser, Silberverderber und für die Verschlackung hinderlicher ja schädlicher Pursch"(Henkel, 1754). Sorry, I cannot translate this text but it says that the early metallurgists hate it.

The rough translation is:

Arsenopyrite eats the lead, corrupts the silver, and is very detrimental for the formation of slag

References Cited:

Jones, B. (2003) The frugal collector: the sulfides, part II: They make great collector specimens, Rock and Gem: 35 (3): 40-44.

12th Jan 2019 11:06 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

Thank you Jamison for the information.

12th Jan 2019 11:19 UTCJolyon Ralph Founder

> when the name was changed to arsenopyrite?

This is a bit of a meaningless question. Prior to the formation of the IMA there was no official list of minerals and no standard for use of names. For about a hundred years prior to this the names 'mispickel' and 'arsenopyrite' were used interchangeably.

So you can argue that the name 'arsenopyrite' was only formally accepted at the point the IMA created their first list of mineral names.

12th Jan 2019 15:38 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Agricola used the mistpuckel. Glock seems to be the first to use arsenopyrite in the early 1830's-1840's.

Danas System of Mineralogy uses mispickel as the main name in the 1850's edition, but by 1892, lists it under arsenopyrite.

If you look at the synonyms in Dana, there were a lot of different names for the same mineral in the 1700's and 1800's. These tended to coalesce into the names that we know them today by the standardization brought about by the "System of Mineralogy" by Dana and other continental book writers.

12th Jan 2019 21:00 UTCRalph S Bottrill 🌟 Manager

On the arsenopyrite page it’s says it was described by Glocker in 1847, but the reference is not listed, nor any references before 1936, curiously, did they somehow disappear?

Also curious is that on the arsenopyrite page mispickel is not listed as a synonym, only as a French and German name, although on the mispickel page it’s specifically shown as a synonym. On the latter page there are no bibliographic references listed for mispickel, sadly. Hopefully somebody has the info?

12th Jan 2019 21:23 UTCTom Tucker

Ralph, Dana, 6th System, 1892 notes: Mistpuckel, Agric., Interpr 465, 1546. I'm not sure why that means - Agric. is not included in the abbreviations in the introduction of the volume. Then, after a couple of entries not of our interest: Arsenikaliskkies, Mispickel, Henckel, Pyrit, 1725. There are later entries if you're interested. Tom

12th Jan 2019 23:16 UTCDoug Daniels

The reference in my 1944 Dana's System is Glocker, 1847. The title(?) is Generum et specierum mineralium secundum ordines naturales digestorum synopsis (8vo, Halle). What the actual reference is, I don't know. But, as far as Dana knew, the first use of the name "arsenopyrite" (OK Jolyon, a grandfathered mineral.....).

13th Jan 2019 10:41 UTCDavid Von Bargen Manager

Agric. = Agricola - he included arsenopyrite as a gray variety of pyrite.

Glocker (1854 System of mineralogy) E F Glocker 1847 Mineralogische Jahreshefte (periodical) He also had Handbuch der Mineralogie (2nd ed 1839)

13th Jan 2019 11:11 UTCJohan Kjellman Expert

Here the Glocker 1847:

https://books.google.se/books?id=lS1YAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA38&dq=arsenopyrit&hl=sv&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwihg4rZzurfAhWBZCwKHf9JA7I4ChDoAQgrMAE#v=onepage&q=arsenopyrit&f=false

of which Schuh says:

Rare. In his work entitled Generum et Specierum Mineralium Synopsis Glocker provides a synopsis of his systematic classification of minerals and gives many new chemical analysis of the species. The book is also one of the most extensive attempts at a systematic nomenclature that has been made in mineralogy. He uses in general a Latinized form of the common name for the name of each species, with some descriptive word added. For varieties he adds a third word, as is common in other branches of natural history For instance, under Granatus, garnet, Glocker gives three species: 1st, Granatus nobilis, precious garnet; 2d, Granatus. hyacinthinus, cinnamon garnet; and 3d, Granatus vulgaris, common garnet, and under the latter he uses for varieties the terminations fuscus, niger, viridis, flavus, and albidus. The work is in Latin, thus going back to the style of the scientific books of the previous centuries, which no doubt contributed to his contemporaries, for the most part, to ignore Glocker's ideas.

13th Jan 2019 12:19 UTCReiner Mielke Expert

To me it looks like one can attribute the name arsenopyrite to 1847. The IMA attributes the name to "Generum et Specierum Mineralium, Secundum Ordines Naturales Digestorum Synopsis. Anton, Halle (1847), 34"

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