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94
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PRECIOUS STONES.
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human
body was held to be an antidote to poisons, and a cure for enchantments
and insanity. Great virtue was ascribed to it as a preservative from
lightning and pestilence. In the mouth it had the effect of causing the
teeth to drop out; but one quaint writer refutes this, on the ground
that he had known it used in powdered form to clean the teeth— for
which purpose it would probably be very efficient—while the teeth
lasted. But taken internally, it was a violent poison. It maintained
affection between man and wife.
In the East it was known as " ripe Diamond " or "pakka," to distinguish it from the " unripe Diamond " (kacha) or Rock Crystal.
As
it occurs in Nature its physical characteristics are remarkable ; in
colour there is a considerable range. The crystallised variety may be
colourless, or of a peculiar steely white colour in the most
sought-after specimens, but they only form some 25 per cent, of the
stones found. A similar proportion are faintly coloured, and quite half
are more or less dark in colour. As a rule, the presence of colouring
matter detracts from the value of the stone, but an exception is made
when the colour is of any very fine shade. The commonest shades found
are honey-yellow, though other shades of yellow are frequently found,
except sulphur-yellow. Various shades of green are the next most
common, but as a rule the tint is a dull one, and only in very rare
cases is it rich, only a few good green stones being known, and most
famous amongst these is the " Dresden Green," a gem of nearly fifty
carats. Various shades of grey are common, but black is rarely seen in
well crystallised stones, though in the Bort (ride infra) it is common. Bed is a very rare shade, too, but when it does occur the tints
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