BLOODSTONE

bloodstone, the popular name of the mineral heliotrope, which is a variety of dark green chalcedony or plasma, with bright red spots, splashes and streaks. the green colour is due to a chloritic mineral; the red to haematite. some coarse kinds are opaque, resembling in this respect jasper, and some writers have sought to restrict the name "bloodstone" to green jasper, with red markings, thus making heliotrope a translucent and bloodstone an opaque stone, but, though convenient, such a distinction is not generally recognized. a good deal of bloodstone comes from india, where it occurs in the deccan traps, and is cut and polished at cambay. the stone is used for seals, knife-handles and various trivial ornaments. bloodstone is not very widely distributed, but is found in the basaltic rocks of the isle of rum in the west of scotland, and in a few other localities. haematite (gr. [greek: aima], blood), or native peroxide of iron, is also sometimes called "bloodstone." bloom (from a.s. _bloma_, a flower), the blossom of flowering plants, or the powdery film on the skin of fresh-picked fruit; hence applied to the surface of newly-minted coins or to a cloudy appearance on the varnish of painting due to moisture; also, in metallurgy, a term used of the rough billets of iron and steel, which have undergone a preliminary hammering or rolling, and are ready for further working.