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LYNCUR1UM.
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163
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hardness,
the antique Jacinth presents a wonderful analogy to the brown Spinel ;
only differing in this, that the former shows a rich orange,
occasionally tinged with crimson, the latter a crimson tinged with
blue, or brown.
This
statement explains the peculiar style of the Greek intagli in Jacinth,
worked out as they are in flowing and shallow hollows, evidently by a technique dissimilar
to that employed in the Sards and Agates of the same period. From its
porous texture, in spite of its great hardness (7'5, that of the Spinel
being 8), antique works in it have always a worn and scratched surface
; and this so invariably, that a Jacinth exhibiting a perfectly
polished exterior may justly be suspected of being a modern work, or at
best a retouched antique. Even the interior of the design, unless where
protected by unusual depth of cutting, -will be found to have suffered
in a conspicuous manner from the effects of friction and of time.
From
its high electricity the soft wax (such as the Romans used in sealing)
* adheres to the intaglio, and will hardly afford a good impression :
it is therefore singular that so many fine intagli should have been
executed in it. But the Greeks, instead of wax, used pipeclay f (the creta
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