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Cyanus, Lazulite

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CYANUS.
126
common method (learnt from the Indians) of forging the transparent precious stones in the age of Pliny. This men­tion of Crystal, and the idea consequently involved of the imitation of a blue, transparent, lustrous body, though merely based upon a mistranslation, was the sole foundation for the belief that the Cyanos could be the modern Sapphire, which the whole tenor of the statement of Theophrastus proves conclusively it was not.
The artificial Cyanos is the blue enamel, as our Museums show, used by the old Egyptians for glazing all their works in terra-cotta, in imitation of the more sumptuous articles in the then so precious Lapis-lazuli. Davy found that the Egyptian azure, employed in fresco-painting, could be exactly and cheaply produced by fusing together during two hours 15 parts carbonate of soda, 20 powdered flint, and 3 of copper-filings, yielding thus the true artificial Cyanos of the Greek mineralogist. The chemist will per­ceive from its ingredients that this composition could be applied as an enamel, as well as employed in powder as a paint ; and that flint replaces the crystal of the old Egyptian recipe.
There can be no doubt that the Cyanos of the earlier Greeks was the mineral known to Pliny as Armenium : both names being mere epithets, the first denoting its colour (blue), the second its native country. " Armenia supplies the paint called by its own name. It is a stone coloured like the Chrysocolla, and" the best quality, that which approximates nearest to that mineral, yet mixing its colour with a sky-blue. It is usually priced at 12 denarii per pound. That found in Spain is in the form of sand, but is prepared for use in the same manner. The cheap­ness of the latter brings it down to 6 denarii. It differs from Azure (Caeruleum) by reason of a slight tinge of whiteness, which renders this colour more tender. Its
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