wheel with difficulty. It takes a very good polish, especially on the spotted parts, as being hardest.
This felspar came originally from India. Now it is brought from the Alps, where it is found in pieces of immense size.
The
appearance of this stone, which has a certain resemblance to the human
skin marked by small-pox, created the belief, in times of ignorance,
that it had the power of curing that infirmity, for which reason it
received the name of variolite.
However,
it is not always green—there are some white, red, and blue. The marks
also vary in colour. There are some which, besides the black spot
encircled with white, have a second circle of a lighter colour like the
onyx.
I
have never seen antique engravings on variolite, although, on account
of the substance of which they are composed, it would be very easy to
engrave on it, especially animals of the feline race.
XCIX.
VERMILION.
This stone is divided, like other gems, into Oriental and Western.
The
Oriental vermilion is of a crimson red, slightly tinged with orange. It
is a clear corundum, having a specific weight of 4'2. It is almost as
hard as the ruby or the sapphire. I do not know how it was
