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CALLAIS AND CALLAINA.
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59
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the
Callaina to be found in Solinus is to the same effect as that cited
from Pliny, but with the important addition "that it comes next to the
Emerald in price and estimation :" a further support of my own idea of
its real character.
Salmasius
was the first to conjecture that "Callaina," not " Callais," was the
true reading in this chapter of Pliny's,—a correction since verified by
Jan's discovery 01 the genuine text,—and supposed it connected with the
name of a peculiar green dye, " Callaicum." Amongst the Indian exports
specified in the ' Feriplus of the Red Sea' we find "pepper, the stone Callainos, Lapis-lazuli,
indigo." This being the case, the Callaina may reasonably be supposed
a variety of the Topazios, but derived from India and Persia, whereas
the original and finest kind was considered peculiar to the island of
the Red Sea, where it had been first discovered (topazios). For
Peridots vary very greatly in colour. Those· of the deepest green are
naturally the most esteemed : others again are all but colourless. Such
a distinction was quite sufficient to oblige the Greek mineralogists,
judging solely by the eye, to class the Topazios. deep-green, and the
Callaina, yellowish-green, under different species.
The Callais, however,
which is entered separately in Pliny's alphabetical list of the
inferior stones (c. 56), and therefore must have been regarded by him
as something totally distinct from his Callaina (a gem of
sufficient importance to engross an entire chapter to itself), has
much better claims to stand for our Turquois ; for " it resembled
Lapis-lazuli, only was whiter (candidior), and of the tint of the sea
where it is shallow."
The
older mineralogists, like De Boot, took Pliny's "Jaspis aërizusa," or
cerulean Jasper, for the Turquois; but without good reason, that stone
being incontestably our
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