Emily Dickinson Lexicon

MIN'ER-AL, n. [Fr. and Sp. mineral; Low L. minera, a matrix or vein of metals, whence mineralia; all from mine.]

A body destitute of organization, and which naturally exists within the earth or at its surface. – Cleaveland. Minerals were formerly divided into salts, earths, inflammables and ores; a division which serves for a general distribution: but a more scientific arrangement into classes, orders, genera, species, subspecies and varieties, has been adopted to meet the more precise views of modern mineralogists.