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Jaspis, Jasper, Quartz-gems

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NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
scribes it in his 13th Book. Of this gem I have had ample experience, having made a necklace out of such stones, and hung it about the patient's neck, descending so low that they could touch the mouth of the stomach ; and they proved of no less service than if they had been engraved after the manner directed by King Nechepsos." What Galen understood by his "green Jasper" is placed beyond all doubt by the still existing multitude of Plasmas belong­ing to his times, engraved with the serpent Chnuphis, often accompanied by a Coptic invocation, the purport of which is in one example made apparent by its Greek translation, " that he would keep in health the chest of Proclus." All the amulets of this nature are confined to the Plasma and greenish-yellow Calcedony. Orpheus again (264) affirms, " that if one offer sacrifice holding in his hand the polished Jasper, colour of the Spring, he rejoiceth the heart of the gods, and they shall satiate his thirsty land with showers, for this stone bringeth down rain upon the parched-up fields." The transcendental virtues of the Eed Jasper were, as it would seem, sung by the same poet under its appellative of Haematites, considered in the preceding pages. Pliny adds the belief that the vermilion-coloured Achates rendered athletes invincible, a notion that may account for the frequency of the engraving of Hercules wrestling with the Nernean lion upon that sort.
Supported thus by the authority of Galen, the efficacy of the Jasper continued undisputed far down into the seventeenth century. De Boot testifies that in his own practice he had observed effects, scarcely credible, fol­lowing from the application of the Eed in cases of hemor­rhage, whether internal or caused by wounds ; and mentions the prevailing belief that the Green, if engraved with the figure of a scorpion when the Sun was entering that Sign of the Zodiac, was a sure preservative against the stone in
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