Any igneous rock with crystals embedded in a finer groundmass of minerals

Usage examples of porphyry.

Yet we possess fragments in Lactantius, Augustine, Macarius Magnes and others, which attest how thoroughly Porphyry studied the Christian writings and how great his faculty was for true historical criticism.

Dust had stirred mustily beneath her bare feet, had coated the disused junk and dilapidated boxes piled between and among the pillars, and had fogged the distant glow of a yellow flame that she was following to its source, a little tallow-dip lamp burning beside the dark sweep of a red porphyry Stair.

Dust had stirred mustily beneath her bare feet, had coated the disused junk and dilapidated boxes piled between and among the pillars, and had fogged the distant glow of a yellow flame that she was following to its source, a little tallow-dip lamp burning beside the dark sweep of a red porphyry stair.

It was, says Porphyry, at this Solstitial New Moon, accompanied by the rising of Seth or the Dog-Star, that the beginning of the year was fixed, and that of the generation of all things, or, as it were, the natal hour of the world.

The Breas, which then had been navigable almost to its source in the foothills of the Rim Mountains, had been crowded with barges bringing slabs of land coral, porphyry, granite, marble and all kinds of precious stones for the construction of the tombs.

He climbed the thirty-five stairs of marble and porphyry leading up to the basilica, crossed the atrium, passed the center fountain surrounded by porphyry columns and stood at the base of the Carlovingian bell tower, aghast at the dilapidated condition of St.

Massive buildings were concocted with red-and-gray granite and alabaster, and purple-red porphyry from Egypt, black-and-yellow marble from Numidia, green cipollino from Eubold, and the white stones of the Carrara quarries near Luna.

The Ecuadorian volcanoes have rarely ejected liquid lava, but chiefly water, mud, ashes, and fragments of trachyte and porphyry.

Porphyry states Egyptians recognize as Gods the Stars of the Zodiac, 458-m.

Pantheon, composed of porphyry, pavonazzetto, and giallo antico, tho constantly overflowed by the Tiber, and drenched by the rains which fall upon it from the roof, is the finest in Rome.

Porphyry relates, attained to this ecstatic union with God four times during the six years he was with him.

The wharves of Baharna are of porphyry, and the city rises in great stone terraces behind them, having streets of steps that are frequently arched over by buildings and the bridges between buildings.

London and the entire facade was refaced in white Italian marble, with ornamented stringcourses in porphyry, and tasteful and extremely elegant bronze sphinxes were placed at the corners of the roof.

Hanna studied the floor, strips of marble and porphyry set into expanding and contracting spirals.

The first crystal sample to be analyzed properly, a blue porphyry type, proved, due to peculiarities of its composition, a marvelous optical storage device, allowing computers virtually instantaneous access to improbably large volumes of data stored in matrixes of exceptionally small dimensions.