s lustre and are translucent. The streak is blue, but lighter than
the colour of the mineral in mass. Hardness 3-1/2--4; sp. gr. 3.8.

Azurite occurs with malachite in the upper portions of deposits of copper
ore, and owes its origin to the alteration of the sulphide or of native
copper by water containing carbon dioxide and oxygen. It is thus a common
mineral in all copper mines, and sometimes occurs in large masses, as in
Arizona and in South Australia, where it has been worked as an ore of
copper, of which element it contains 55%. Being less hydrated than
malachite it is itself liable to alteration into this mineral, and
pseudomorphs of malachite after azurite are not uncommon. Occasionally the
massive material is cut and polished for decorative purposes, though the
application in this direction is far less extensive than that of malachite.

(L. J. S.)

AZYMITES (Gr. [Greek: a-], without; [Greek: zume], leaven), a name given by
the Orthodox Eastern to the Western or Latin Church, because of the
latter's use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, a practice which arose
in the 9th century and is also observed by Armenians and Maronites
following the Jewish passover custom. The Orthodox Church strenuously
maintains its point, arguing that the very name bread, the holiness of the
mystery, and the example of Jesus and the early church alike, testify
against the use of unleavened bread in this connexion.

[v.03 p.0087]

B This letter corresponds to the second symbol in the Phoenician alphabet,
and appears in the same position in all the European alphabets, except
those derived, like the Russian, from medieval Greek, in which the
pronunciation of this symbol had changed from _b_ to _v_. A new form had
therefore to be invented for the genuine _b_ in Slavonic, to which there
was, at the period when the alphabet was adopted, no corresponding sound in
Greek. The new symbol, which occupies the second position, was made by
removing the upper loop of B, thus producing a symbol somewhat resembling
an ordinary lowercase b. The old B retained the numerical value of the
Greek [beta] as 2, and no numerical value was given to the new symbol. In
the Phoenician alphabet the earliest forms are [Two Bs] or more rounded
[1]. The rounded form appears also in the earliest Aramaic (see ALPHABET).
Like some other alphabetic symbols it was not borrowed by Greek in its
original form. In the very early rock inscriptions of Thera (700-600 B.C.),