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Book VI gems: diamond, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, chrysoberyl, carbuncle, jaspis

Book VI gems: diamond, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, chrysoberyl, carbuncle, jaspis Page of 251 Book VI gems: diamond, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, chrysoberyl, carbuncle, jaspis Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
BOOK VI
113
color, by some name signifying the color. AVhen a white gem has a black top it is called epimelas and when, like the Median smaragdus, it resembles a poppy it is called meconitcs. On the other hand, when chrysolithvs is cut by a white vein it is called leucochrysos and this name is only given to this one gem since other gems having this white line do not have a golden color. Thus grammatias, polygrammos, mesoleucos and mcsomelas are not in themselves gems nor are perileucos, meconites, epimelas and leucochrysos. Gems are found in many ways. With us they occur either as if by their own free will or they are picked out of washed sand or they are dug out of the mountains. When they occur as if by their own free will they may be turned up by the plow as are the garnets in the fields of Bohemia and Lygi-us or exposed by the etesian winds which remove the surrounding sand as is the case with the smaragdus which the Bactrian horsemen collect into small piles. They may be exposed by torrents as are the sardonyx they gather from the charadrae1 of India, or they are carried to the banks of rivers together with other pebbles as are the agates found along the Choaspes river in Persia. Some project from massive rock as do the crystals of quartz found in the highest part of Mt. Melibocus which the people of the Harz Wood call Blochenberg, having changed the letters. By these methods transparent gems are sought for so widely because they seize the sparkle of the stars and give it back, by day reflecting the splendor of the sun, by night the beauty of the moon.
But the rest, and those more properly called stones, are found by chance. Having been found in this way a small number are collected but this requires more labor, especially when the stones are attached to the rough parent rock. For example, the country people who live on Mt. Melibocus and in the Alps climb these mountains or hang from ropes in order to find crystals of quartz. The horsemen of Carmania find their turquois in moss at the base of cliffs. It adheres lightly to the moss, not as to the parent rock, as Pliny writes, but as if it had been placed in it. The sands of springs and rivers are washed for gems. Garnets are ob­tained in this way from a spring in Bohemia between the fortress we call The Royal Watchtower and the town of Plana. The finest carbunculi and hyacinthi are obtained from a river in Misena above the walled city of Hoestein, five miles from Stolpa. Hyacinthus, with the bluish gray color and unctuousness of jaspis, is mined in Misena near Volchestein. Some­times another stone called borea is mined from the two mountains of Ligyes near the town of Striga. In India the finest carbunculi are mined from a mountain on the island of Ceylon. Gems are sometimes found in veins, stringers or vugs in rocks. Some are found in the actual heart of a rock, for example, the sard found near Babylon, according to Pliny. There it was exposed in a stone quarry.
1 A charadra was a canal built for the purpose of carrying water to a place where it was used to wash dirt and other waste materials from metals, minerals or gems.
Book VI gems: diamond, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, chrysoberyl, carbuncle, jaspis Page of 251 Book VI gems: diamond, emeralds, sapphire, topaz, chrysoberyl, carbuncle, jaspis
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