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Prasius, Plasma

Prasius, Plasma Page of 384 Sandaster, Aventurine Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
268                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
picked up amidst the débris of Roman edifices. Several of the green stones distinguished by Pliny with the names of Prasioides, Tanos, Molochites, and perhaps the Callaina, are, to all appearance, now included under the indis­criminate appellation of Plasma. Certain it is, that the great variety of the tints and textures of the stones so designated at present would have induced the ancients, whose scientific nomenclature was entirely based upon external peculiarities, to class them under different names.
Prismatical beads of Plasma, as well as of Garnet, are often to be discovered in the earth about Rome. They all range to nearly the same size, so that antiquaries have little difficulty in forming an even row out of many distinct purchases. An additional fact this tending to prove in its way, that our Plasma is but another name for the Jaspis of the ancients : for Naumachius names neck­laces of the latter as equally coveted by women with those of the Hyacinthus (Sapphire).
Orpheus (749) sings: "By this means (by eating of the serpent-sacrifice) was I taught thy powerful virtue as a remedy against the sable asp, thou life-saving, divine stone, that bearest the name, and the colour, of the green leek." Here we find the root of the manifold virtues as an antidote ascribed to the Green Jasper by mediœval sages (Jaspis).
Prasius, Plasma Page of 384 Sandaster, Aventurine
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