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THE BERYL.
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latter city was sacked by Alaric this relic formed a part of the
spoils, and, like the Sacro Catino, it turned out to be glass. Antique glass emeralds, far superior in color, lustre, and
hardness to modern pastes, have sometimes been recut and faceted for rings, by modern Roman dealers, and sold to incautious dilettanti for the real article. The Cingalese are charged with using the bottoms of wine-bottles from which they cut "bona fide" emeralds for foreigners, and the " Brighton emeralds " purchased by visitors have a similar origin. It is related that the tomb of one of the princes of Cyprus
placed near the sea was surmounted by a lion with emerald eyes so lustrous that the fishes were scared away by their brilliancy, and, for the sake of the fisherman's craft, they were removed. It is possible, remarks Mr. King, that the marble lion brought from Cnidos with eyes deprived of their pupils, now in the British Museum, may be the identical lion of Cyprus. Topaz. — The topaz of antiquity, it is supposed, was the
chrysolite, while the modern topaz was known to the ancients by some other name ; that it was employed by them as a gemstone is evident from Greek intagli, of a very early period, which have come down to the present day. The origin of the word has been ascribed to topaza, signifying "to guess," and also to Topazos, an island in the Red Sea, from which the early nations obtained their topaz, whatever that may have been. It is thought the greenish yellow topaz was called by the ancient lapidaries Chrysoprase, a term now applied to a variety of quartz. There are two kinds known to modern mineralogists ; the
oriental, constituting a variety of the precious corundum, and sometimes denominated yellow sapphire; and the occidental, of a different composition, forming a distinct species. |
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