rubicund (robikund)

[ He had, indeed, all the outward signs of a sot: a sleepy eye, a rubicund face, and carbuncled nose. Smollett , Travels, ii. Falstaff alludes to Pistol's rubicund nose. Douce , Illustrations of Shakspeare, p. 36. =Syn. Rosy, etc. See ruddy. rubicundity (rö-bi-kun'di-ti), n. [ IMG:content-2558.png:[blocks in formation] bid in (rö'bi-din), n. [ rubidium (rö-bid'i-um), n. [NL., so named from the reddish tint of its salts. It is very soft, is silver-white in color, has a specific gravity of 1.52, and melts at about 101° F. When thrown into water it burns, forming rubidium hydrate, RbOH Rubidium was first detected by the spectroscope, together with cæsium, in the mineral water of Dürkheim, in which it exists to the amount of two parts in ten million. It has since been found in considerable quantity, together with cæsium and lithium, in several other saline waters, and most abundantly in that of Bourbonne-les-Bains in France. It is also found in several lepidolites: that of Rozena, in Moravia, contains 0.24 per cent. of rubidium, with only a trace of cæsium; that of Hebron, in the State of Maine, 0.24 per cent. of rubidium and 0.3 per cent. of cæsium. The two metals likewise occur, though in smaller quantity, in the lepidolite of Prague, the petalite of Utö in Finland, the lithia-mica of Zinnwald in the Erzgebirge, and other lithia minerals. It has been found also in the ashes of many plants, and in the saline or crude potash obtained from the residue of the beet-sugar manufacture. It has been found in tobacco-leaves, and in coffee, tea, cocoa, and crude tar tar. In minerals and mineral waters rubidium and cas i um are always a ociated with lithium, and generally also with pota ium and sodium; but plants have the power of a imilating two or three of these metals to the exclu sion of the rest; thus, tea, coffee, and the saline of beetroot contain pota ium, sodium, and rubidium, but not a IMG:content-2559.png:[blocks in formation] faction.