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Beryllus, Beryl

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54                   NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
accounted for by the extreme value this, then so rares material, bore amongst the ancients, equal in fact to that j of the true Emerald : but its modern plentifulness, coupled with its beauty, has rendered it a favourite stone with the artists of the Eenaissance and of succeeding times. These recent works may be distinguished as invariably executed upon the green sort or Aquamarine ; the Aëroides or sky-blue of the ancients either not being any longer obtain-able, or else of much greater rarity. It is the vast supply poured in from Saxony, Siberia, and America, that has sunk the value of this beautiful stone so low in modern times. It possesses very great lustre, especially by lamp­light ; for which reason the lighter-coloured varieties have long been used in jewelry as fraudulent substitutes for the true Diamond, a deception noted as commonly practised in the fifteenth century by Camillo when treating of the tricks of the jewellers in his own day. At present it is similarly employed in Germany under the name of " Diamond of the Rhine." In consequence of this substi­tution, it happens that people have often flattered them­selves with being the owners of a Diamond of enormous value, which, on examination by a skilful lapidary, has turned out to bo nothing more than a small, worthless Aquamarine. The stone has gone completely out of fashion in this country (though not in Italy) ; the natural result of the profusion in which it is now produced by the different regions above mentioned, and that too in masses often of enormous size, their dimensions reminding us of the monstrous smaragdi spoken of by Apion and Theophrastus. Remarkable specimens in the British Museum are two Beryls from Ackworth, New Hampshire, one weighing 48, and the other 83 pounds.
The most singular modern work ever executed in this stone is the sword-hilt of that brilliant fop, Murat, of
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