258 A POPULAR TREATISE ON GEMS.
Haddatn,
Conn., also affords fine black crystals, and some of large size ; they
are profusely mingled in a mica slate, and associated with anthophylite
and hornblende. A cinnamon-brown variety is met with at Gouverneur, Ν.
Υ., imbedded with quartz, and also associated with scapolite, apatite,
and spheue, in granular limestone. These crystals are very often highly
modified, and occasionally exhibit the faces of a scalene dodecahedron
in addition to the terminal planes. Similar specimens occur at
Grenville, Lower Canada, and Newton, K. J., associated with corundum,
spinelle, and rutil ; and at Kingsbridge, 1ST. Y., and Carlisle, Mass.,
with garnet.
The
red tourmaline, when transparent and free from cracks and fissures,
admits of a high polish, and forms a most beautiful and costly gem.
It has been supposed that tourmaline was known to the ancients under the name of lyncurium (λννκονριον), which
is described as having electrical properties; this name, however, was
more probably applied to some variety of amber, which was so called
from its supposed origin from the urine of the lynx. The identity of
the red tourmaline with the hyacinth of the Greeks is more probable ;
the other varieties were either unknown, or possibly connected under a
common name with other species of the same color.
Tourmaline
received no attention from the moderns till Lemery, in 1717, published
his discoveries. The word tourmaline is a corruption of the name for
this mineral at Ceylon, whence it was first brought into Europe.
The
name schorl, which has been applied to the black tourmaline and some
other mineral species, is reported to have been derived from Schorland,
the name of a village in Saxony, which afforded specimens of this
variety.
Tourmaline is cut on a brass or leaden wheel with emery, and polished with rotten-stone on a tin plate ; it re-
