Sunday, 19 April 2020

What's in a name?


Among the few moths caught last night this rather early Cinnabar. Artists or chemists may know the origin of its name (but I had to look it up in Wikipedia): cinnabar is the red form of mercury sulphide – an historic source of the scarlet pigment known as vermilion (or vermillion) used in art works since antiquity. While the rock may not look a good match for the colour of the moth, the pigment is.


















          Cinnabar mercury ore
                                                                                  (Photo: Chris Ralph [public domain])
     
John Thacker, Harwell
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1 comment:

  1. Martin Harvey19 April 2020 at 19:25

    I didn't know that! Thanks John, nicely illustrated.

    ReplyDelete

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