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OPALUS.
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purely
for the sake of this gem ; but made his escape, carrying off the ring
along with him, the sole relic of his fortune : putting up with exile
rather than make his peace with the Triumvir by the surrender of the
coveted treasure. The finest Opal of modern times was the Empress
Josephine's, entitled the " Burning of Troy," from the innumerable red
flamos blazing upon its surface, the reverse being perfectly opaque.
The present owner of this unique gem is unknown. The Turks of our day
esteem the Opal as highly as the Diamond, and readily give 1000l. for a perfect one of the size above specified by Pliny.
"
India," continues the naturalist, " is the sole mother of the Opal."
This region (or perhaps Arabia) continued the only source of the supply
of the best sort down to a comparatively recent period. When De Boot
wrote there was but one mine known in Hungary, and that nearly filled
up with rubbish ; and which besides, he remarks, had hardly ever
furnished anything but the third and fourth rate Opals, the first even
then coining exclusively from India.* Some mineralogists doubt the fact
that any region of the East Indies ever produced the true Opal, merely
because no such gem is now brought from thence ; hut the same argument
applies here as in the case of the true Emerald, not at this time found
in that country, formerly the principal source of the stone. The
Hungarian mines of Czernovitza (where this gem occurs embedded in
porphyry), a region inaccessible to the Romans of Pliny's age, now
supply the finest Opals, and of a size far exceeding that of Nonius. A
gigantic specimen is exhibited in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna, and
for which,
* The defect of the Hungarian was the yellow tinge pervading the body, which entirely dulled the precious iridescence of the species. The great majority too were no more than Senei-Opal (the Girasol).
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