precious
stone was thy covering. Thou hast walked up and down in the midst of
the stones of fire." As tradition placed the garden of Eden in the
valley of the Euphrates, Ezekiel makes the garden typical of the
splendor of Babylon in his fervid outpouring.
How
the stones of fire were brought into being in the garden of Eden or
elsewhere, Ezekiel was not moved to reveal, and the savants that have
sought to tell are but groping seers. When a sprinkling of stones was
uncovered by the rains and floods, or dug and washed from the beds of
gravel, or traced by rude mining through clay or conglomerate layers
or enclosing rocks, there was still no widespread knowledge of the
deposits, and even among the most familiar with the search there was
ever the hope of finding, some day, some marvellous store. Hence sprung
up the romances. Even in the days when the sharp tooth of history had
cut into legends, a story was told of the climbing of Zulmat by the
great Alexander, to the rim of the inaccessible valley, where, beneath
sheer precipices, glittered a coverlet of the stones of fire. There was
no way of winning the diamonds that glowed so temptingly except by
flinging down masses of flesh and waiting for swooping vultures to bear
the lumps up to their perches on the mountain with precious stones
sticking in the meat.1
Sindbad
the sailor had this tale in mind fortunately in his second voyage. It
will be remembered that he was stranded by shipwreck on a desert island
and carried away by the flight of a gigantic rukh to the top of a
distant mountain. From this mountain he descended into a neighboring "
valley, exceeding great and wide and deep and bounded by vast
mountains that spired high in air." Walking along the wady, he found
that " its soil was of diamond, the stone wherewith they pierce
minerals and precious stones and porcelain and the onyx, for that it is
a dense stone and a stubborn, whereon neither iron or hardhead hath
effect, neither can we cut off aught therefrom, nor break it save by
means of lead stone."
1 " Oriental Accounts of Precious Minerals," Journal of Asiatic Society of Bengal, August, 1832.
