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Alabandicus, Almandine, Garnet

Alabandicus, Almandine, Garnet Page of 384 Alabandicus, Almandine, Garnet Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
     
     
 
ALABANDICUS. 15
 
 

 
 
small one sold for 40 gold staters (40 guineas)," seems to have been the true Ruby, yet that found near Miletus in "polygonal pieces" must have been our Garnet, the primary form of which is the rhombic dodecahedron. Similarly those named by him as found in various parts of Greece, and as being of little value (33), and which he distinguishes from the precious "ëíèñáî by giving them the lowering name
ßêùí, must have been the Common Garnet. These were, that found at Orchomenus, darker than the Chian sort, and out of which mirrors were made ; the Trœzenian,
red clouded with white ; and the Corinthian, still fainter in colour. The plane surface of a dark Garnet will reflect objects with considerable distinctness; the "mirrors" here mentioned were, it is not impossible, " table " Garnets of this kind :* (the only gems employed in the Merovingian
Is of the 7th and 8th centuries are in fact Garnet tables neatly inlaid, so as to form patterns in the fibula? of copper gilt): Theophrastus thereupon remarks that all the kinds fourni in Greece were common enough and of trifling value, but that the better sort were rare, and brought only from few places—Carthago, Massilia, Egypt, and Syene. Pliny divides his Carbunculi into male and female, the former of a brilliant, the latter of a duller lustre. In the males of the Carthaginian kind, as it were a blazing star shone within them, whereas the females diffused their entire lustre externally. These Carthaginian stones were smaller than those coming from India. It may be deduced from these characters that the male Carbunculi were our Eubies, the females our Garnets.
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
     
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