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Opalus, Opal

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OPALUS.                                           243
or the Anteros, others as the gem of Venus." Again (40), he describes the Pœderos as " the chief amongst the colour­less stones (candidarum dux), though it was a question under what cohur it ought to be classed : the name having been so much bandied about amongst the beauties of other species, so that the mere distinction of loveliness had become of itself a name." Meaning that this name of Cupid had been indiscriminately applied to the most elegant specimens of stones of many different sorts, pro­vided they possessed the qualification of rosiness, being in fact a mere epithet of beauty, not of species. " Neverthe­less, the actual kind (or the Opal specially so designated) comes up to our expectations of what is due to such a name. For in a transparent Crystal are united a sky-blue, turning to a peculiar green (viridis suo modo aè'r) a gleam of purple (our crimson), and also a certain golden, vinous hue ; always the last in sight, and always crowned by the purple. The gem appears steeped in these colours singly, and yet in all at once : no other is more limpid or agreeable to the eye. The best kind is found in India, where it is called Sangenon ; the next in Egypt, termed there Tenites ; the third is the Arabian." A passage this, leading to the same conclusion as the one previously quoted, viz., that the Pœderos properly signified the Opal, though applied by some lapidaries to the Amethyst and pinkish Almandine.
The defects of his true Opal are thus enumerated : its colour passed off into that of the flower called heliotropium, or into that of crystal or of hail ; sometimes intermixed with salt (white granulations), or flaws, or little points that-struck the eye. The semi-Opal is merely a pure calcedony of a pale, milky blue, which in certain lights appears to contain a slight fiery radiance. From its deficiency in the proper beauties of the Opal the Germans styled it the
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