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Cyanus, Lazulite

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124                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
monarchy record this also, which of the kings it was who made a fused Cyanos in imitation of the natural stone; and that this mineral used to be sent as a present from other countries. From Phoenicia, however, it was brought as an appointed tribute, a fixed quantity of Cyanos, so much in the native state, and so much ready calcined. The persons who grind up paints say that the Cyanos produces from itself four different shades of colour : the first made from the thinnest pieces being the palest, the second from the thickest giving the deepest tint." ·
From all this it is evident that Theophrastus is de­scribing some mineral used merely as a paint, and not as a precious stone,* and that his Cyanos was nothing else than an inferior Lapis-lazuli, like what we see in antique Egypt tian jewelry, or rather a Lazulite prepared by calcination for the painter's use, that is converted into ultramarine. Or it may have been Sulphate of Copper in bright-blue crystals (Cyanose) : which is nearly transparent in its native state, and of considerable hardness : or again some­thing of the nature of the Lapis Armenius (Berg-blau) noticed by Tavernier and Chardin as employed in Persia in their own times as a cheap substitute for ultramarine. The gold-dust, however, noticed by Pliny as occurring upon its surface, though but occasionally (of which Theo­phrastus says nothing), would again lead to the conclusion that his was a variety of the Lapis-lazuli, pieces of which sometimes are found entirely filled with the specks of Pyrites. Pliny, understanding Theophrastus to be de­scribing a precious stone, has mistaken his meaning as to the discovery of the Egyptian king, and has rendered his " fused Cyanos " by " stained Rock-crystal," that being the
* The Sapphirus, or Lapis-lazuli, is described in the first division of his book, containing Stones and Gems ; but the Cyanos comes in the second, treating of Earths used in the arts.
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