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Mineral′ogist, one versed in mineralogy; Mineral′ogy, the science which treats of minerals: the art of describing and classifying minerals.—Mineral acids, a name applied to sulphuric, nitric, and hydrochloric acids; Mineral black, an impure carbon used as a pigment; Mineral caoutchouc, a variety of bitumen—also Elaterite; Mineral kingdom, that department of nature which comprises substances that are neither animal nor vegetable; Mineral oil, oil which is forced up or pumped from the earth, as petroleum, naphtha, &c.;

Elastic Bitumen, Elaterite, or Mineral Caoutchouc, an elastic mineral bitumen of a blackish-brown colour, and subtranslucent.

ELATERITE, also termed Elastic Bitumen and Mineral Caoutchouc, a mineral hydrocarbon, which occurs at Castleton in Derbyshire, in the lead mines of Odin and elsewhere.

In its widest sense it embraces the whole range of these substances, including natural gas, the more or less liquid descriptions of petroleum, and the solid forms of asphalt, albertite, gilsonite or uintahite, elaterite, ozokerite and hatchettite.

A peculiar variety of the last named, called “Blue John,” is found only near Castleton; at the same place occurs the remarkable elastic bitumen, “elaterite.”