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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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