Emily Dickinson Lexicon

SHORL, n. [Sw. skörl, from skör, brittle. Dan. skiör.]

A mineral, usually of a black color, found in masses of an indeterminate form, or crystalized in three or nine-sided prisms, which when entire are terminated by three-sided summits. The surface of the crystals is longitudinally streaked. The amorphous sort presents thin straight distinct columnar concretions, sometimes parallel, sometimes diverging or stelliform. This is called also tourmalin. – Haüy. Werner. Kirwan. The shorl of the mineralogists of the last century prehended a variety of substances which later observations have separated into several species. The green shorl is the epidote, or the vesuvian, or the actinolite. The violet shorl and the lenticular shorl are the axinite. The black volcanic shorl is the augite. The white vesuvian shorl is the sommite. The white grenatiform is the leucite. The white prismatic is the pycnite, a species of the topaz, and another is a variety of feldspar. Of the blue shorl, one variety is the oxyd of titanium, another the sappare, and another the phosphate of iron. The shorl cruciform is the granatite. The octahedral shorl is the octahedrite or anatase. The red shorl of Hungary and the purple of Madagascar, are varieties of the oxyd of titanium. The spathic shorl is the spodumene. The black shorl and the electric shorl only remain, and to this species the name tourmalin was given by that celebrated mineralogist, the Abbé Haüy. – Gibbs, Journ. of Science. Blue shorl is a variety of Hauyne. Red and titanitic shorl is rutile. – Ure.