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Lyncurium, Jacinth

Lapis Lydius, Touchstone, Assaying Page of 384 Lyncurium, Jacinth Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
160                    NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
The Lyncurium derives its name from the strange notion that it was the urine of the Lynx petrified, and it is so described by Theophrastus (28) : " Equally wonderful is the Lyncurium (for out of this also signets are engraved, since it is very hard, exactly like a real stone), fur it attracts in the same manner as Amber, some say not only straws and bits of wood, but even copper and iron, if they be in thin pieces, as Diocles also hath observed. It is highly transparent and cold to the touch. That produced by the male lynx is better than that by the female, and that of the wild lynx better than that of the tame, in consequence both of the difference of their food, and of the former having plenty of exercise, the latter none—hence the secretions of the wild are the more limpid. Those practised in the search find it by digging ; for the animal endeavours to conceal the deposit by scraping up ihe earth after having voided it. There is a peculiar and tedious method of working up this substance also (as well as the Smaragdus)." Ovid repeats the same story (Met. xv. 413).
" Victa racemifero lyneas dedit India Baccho E quibus ut memorant quicquid vesica remisit Vertitur in lapides et congelât aëre tacto."
Pliny indeed (xxxvii. 13), after apologising for mentioning the Lyncurium, "to which he was forced by the pertinacity of writers on mineralogy," quotes the above passage from Theophrastus; and declares that unless the thing- were
Lapis Lydius, Touchstone, Assaying Page of 384 Lyncurium, Jacinth
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