Quantcast
  We apologize for any slow response. This will be fixed before October 31st Portal logo
Login/Register
Bactrian Gold Treasure from Afghanistan, coming soon....
/gemstones/king-gems-decorative-stones/page_100 - 2
 

Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase

Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase Page of 384 Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
CHRYSOPRASIUS.
91
position as the Prase, it differs greatly from that stone in outward appearance, by reason of its opacity and much more agreeable and more uniform tint of green, besides its greatly superior hardness.
Although antique works do not occur in our Chrysoprase —a necessary consequence from the fact that the only locality producing it lay without the limits of Roman en­terprise—yet a mineral much resembling it, though with somewhat of a bluish cast, is said to be found sometimes set in old Egyptian jewelry alternately with bits of Lapis-lazuli. Intagli also are known upon this same substance, which has, on account of its colour and slight translucency, been mistaken occasionally for the Turquois. One in my pssession bears a most singular type, Barbelo, the androgy­nous " Mother of Creation " of the Phoenicians, with the appropriate attributes of the snail (salacity) and the but­terfly (life). The substance may be defined as a blue Plasma ; it contains the peculiar black specks that charac­terise the species. This antique kind may with some pro­bability be considered the cerulean Jaspis brought from the Thermodon.
Some such stone as this may have been the Omphax, reckoned by Theophrastus (30) amongst the commoner ring-stones. The word, primarily signifying an unripe grape, could only have applied to a gem equally opaque and green, with a certain bluish bloom upon it. It is strange, indeed, that no Greek intagli are now extant in any gem at all answering to this description, for Theophrastus puts it in the same list as the Carbuncle, Sard, and Amethyst (Garnet), whence one would conclude it to have then been equally in general use. Furlanus understands by it an inferior sort of Beryl, De Laet says " de quo nihil certi possum affirmare." A recent writer is certain that our pale, uniformly-tinted Prase is signified : but the trans-
Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase Page of 384 Chrysoprasius, Chrysoprase
Suggested Illustrations
Other Chapters you may find useful
Other Books on this topic
bullet Tag
This Page