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Murrhina, China-Agate

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182
NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
the beautiful quality fit for ornamental purposes being situated in Cornwall and Derbyshire. Mongez, basing his decision upon the iridescence above noticed, proves it must have been Ceeholong, or Semi-opal, but the large dimen­sions specified of the antique pieces entirely controvert such an explanation.*
Strange to say, the first English translator of Pliny, old Philemon Holland, has come nearer the mark than any, by rendering the word as Cassidoine, or Calcedony ; in fact he is perfectly correct, if we take that term in its fullest sense as the generic designation of the Agate family. The only mode of arriving at the true solution of the question is by the careful examination of ancient remains, more particu­larly those exhumed in Rome itself. For if the whole vessels of an imperishable material were so abundant there during the four centuries of the Empire, as contemporary allusions lead us to believe, it is a logical consequence that their fragments at least must be as plentiful in the same place at the present day, since no possible circumstance could have swept them entirely out of existence. Now what is actually the case ? Fragments of bowls made of Agate (but of no other irregularly-coloured stone) are turned up in abundance in the soil of the ancient capital, and often of a radius that bespeaks the extraordinaiy cir­cumference of the perfect vessel. Such pieces, if not large enough to be preserved as antiques, are cut up into brooch-stones; and every spring furnishes the Roman lapidaries with an inexhaustible supply. Perfect vessels, from the fra­gility of the material, are rare, yet a comparatively large number are yet in existence. Of these by far the most mag­nificent example is to be seen amongst the Townley Pastes
* Besides, not one of the four stones proposed by these writers pre­sent distinct patches of one colour upon a ground of another, which was the grand distinction of the Murrhina.
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