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146 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
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Pliny's
date, he nowhere expressly mentions it, though it seems to be intended
by some of his descriptions of 8 cursorily mentioned as red. Amongst these the Corallis has,
in my opinion, the best claim to be considered its ancient
representative : for " it resembled vermilion in colour, and was
produced in India and Syene." The last would explain its
frequent occurrence in Egyptian amulets and symbols, such as eyes,
fingers, horses' heads, &c. This Syene Eed Jasper is pale but
uniform in tint, and at first sight would easily be mistaken for
unpolished Coral.
This
sort may be the " single-coloured Achates " of Pliny. which boiled in
oil communicated to it a vermilion colour: indeed Orpheus (609) terms
one variety of the Achates ìéëôïðÜñçïò " vermilion-cheeked." It was not the Hœma-chates, for that is
defined by Solinus as "blushing with spots of blood," and therefore was
the translucent Blood-agate as distinguished from the opaque, uniformly
tinted, Eed Jasper. Neither was it Pliny's stone Haematites
(xxxvi 25), for that was a loadstone, and thereby pointed out as the
magnetic iron-ore still retaining the name. With more reason may it be
found in the Haematitis of Theophrastus (37), reckoned by him amongst
the cheaper gems, the Fossil Ivory, Prasitis, and Sapphirus ; and which
he describes as dry and composed, as it were, out of clotted blood,
having also a variety of a paler tint. Pliny adds to this, that it was
found both in Numidia and in Arabia ; and as he, too, classes it
amongst the gems (60), the Haematitis probably was no other than our Eed Jasper.
But his Haematites, the mineral " lapis," as distinguished from the gem in
another passage (xxxvi. 37), was a red oxide of iron, very serviceable
in all diseases of the eye, and in the treatment of dysentery, and
which Orpheus (050) fables to have owed its origin to the blood of
Uranus which fell to the earth when he was mutilated by the
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