cious
garnet, is again divided, according to its transparency, into almandine
and pyrope. As already stated, the different varieties differ very
little, and as the only important species, possessing characters more
distinctive than others from the garnet, is the cinnamon-stone, or
essonite, the author has seen fit to separate it from the garnet, and
to describe it under its proper head; moreover, essonite is more used
by jewellers, when cut, than any of the other species of garnet, and as
it has of late become fashionable, it may be well to give a fuller
description of the same.
Garnet
was the carbunculus of the ancients. This term was probably applied
also to the spinelle and Oriental ruby. The alabandic carbuncles of
Pliny were so called, because they were cut and polished at Alabanda;
hence the name almandine, now in use.
In
Bohemia, where there is a considerable trade in garnets, they are
separated from the earth by levigation, then assorted into different
sizes, afterwards washed again, and assorted as to color and quality,
and according to the quantity required for balancing a certain weight,
as half an ounce, they are called 32, 40, 76, 100; very seldom do they
find them 16 to 20, weighing together half an ounce.
The
larger garnets are cut on the leaden wheel with emery, or their own
powder, and polished with rotten-stone or oil of vitriol, on a tin
plate, in the form of brilliants, roses, table-stones, or in cabochon,
or with two rows of facets at the girdle; and very often garnets are
brighter and more agreeable by excavating them circularly on the
bottom; they are then called garnet-cups. I have in my possession
several large excavated garnets, and I saw at Berlin, in 1828, such
garnets of two and three inches size.
Fine garnets are set d jour ; others are set with a gold
