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46
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GEMS.
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abundance,
and found in all parts of the globe ; whereas the ancients had it only
from India, and prized it as much as the emerald, with which they even
confounded it; so that the enormous emeralds of which Theo-phrastus and
Apion speak are now thought to have been aquamarina, as this stone is
found in very large pieces.
There
are very few undoubtedly antique intagli in this stone, and they are as
rare as those on the emerald ; the best, according to my experience,
belonged to the Mertens collection. Generally the engraved beryls are
Ionian work, whereas the engravings on emerald are Roman.
But
although the Romans did not engrave the beryl they facetted it, and it
was the only stone they cut in that manner. They used it for ear-drops
and rings. When the shade of Cynthia appears to Propertius, he remarks
that—
" Et solitam digito beryllon adederat ignis."
Here
we may remark, it appears that the ancients applied the term " beryllus
" also to a magnifying glass, and perhaps they used aquamarina for the
same purpose. This supposition is rendered probable from two reasons ;
the first is that in the German language spectacles are called "
brille," and no other derivation has been found for this word than the
Latin " beryllus ;" the second is that Nero is said to have looked at
the spectacle in the theatres through a very large emerald. We have
already seen how easily the ancients conÂfounded the emerald with the
beryl, and therefore we
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