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Ceraunia, Thunder-bolt

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80
NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
arrows or hammers) penetrated into the earth to the depth of nine fathoms, and then rose up towards the surface at the rate of one fathom in a year. De Boot quotes many similar instances of their discovery under the same circum­stances, but, unable to resist the evidence of human work­manship which they exhibit, ingeniously conjectures that they had been originally iron tools, but converted into stone by long continuance in the earth !
The Iris, mentioned by Pliny as next in estimation to the Ceraunia in the opinion of the Magi, was nothing more than a piece of Rock-crystal which had accidentally as­sumed the form of a prism, so that within a room it was capable of forming the prismatic spectrum upon the wall. A most beautiful phenomenon truly, and well adapted to excite a belief in the supernatural virtues of the medium in the minds of people ignorant that the effect was due merely to the form. It was remarked as strange, that when placed in the sun the arrangement of its angles did not produce the rainbow colours, but only when under the shade of a roof. Pliny observes that the stone itself did not contain the colours, but that they were elicited by the reflection of the wall. In all other respects it resembled common Rock-crystal : it was found in an island in the Eed Sea, sixty miles off Berenice.
There was another gem resembling this in appearance, but not in effect, and therefore called Leros (empty), which was a Crystal crossed by a white and black cloud.
The gem now known as the Iris is Rock-crystal contain­ing many natural flaws, which by the refraction of light produce the most beautiful play of colours internally, re­sembling sheets of flame. The Iris can be artificially created by flawing the Crystal with a sharp blow of a mallet, or by throwing it into boiling water.
Besides the Ceraunia, Pliny (65) enumerates other stones
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