|
SANDASTER.
|
271
|
||
|
|
|||
|
Nothing
now coming from India, or employed in jewelry, corresponds to this
obscure account (Pliny himself had evidently never seen the stone) so
well as the Matrix of Opal, a compact Serpentine of a dark brown
colour, and filled with minute Opals of extraordinary lustre, mimicking
indeed, to a fanciful eye, the stars that gem the ebon brow of night.
The exceptional tenderness and fragility of the imprisoned Opals seems
unmistakably referred to by the remark of Ismenias above cited. This
beautiful substance cut into thin slabs, their value proportionate to
the number of Opals they contained, was formerly much in fashion for
the tops of snuff-boxes, and similar trinkets. The matrix itself being
a decomposed serpentine is extremely fragile, and therefore is cut into
such plaques with much difficulty ; another point of resemblance to the
above-given character of the Sandaster. Its natural colour is light
yellow, but, before use, it is soaked in oil and baked, which besides
rendering its texture more compact, turns it into a rich dark-brown,
marvellously enhancing the lustre of the little Opal-stars twinkling
over its surface.
The name Sandaster sounds like a Persian epithet, and appears to be corrupted from Saan-Aster, the
" Royal Fire." Pliny notices that it was used by the Chaldeans in their
religious offices, in virtue of the stars it contained. Another stone
was often confounded with it from the similarity of its name merely,
viz., the Sandaresus, or Sandaresion, also an Indian export. But this was of an apple or olive green (some species of the Jaspis therefore), and of no value.
The
Lumachella marble has in one respect a strong claim to represent the
Sandaster : its ground being dusky, and so far bearing out the
comparison of the ancient mineral to the Anthracitis ; but the fires
blazing so wonderfully within its darkness assume the curved forms of
the broken
|
|||
|
|
|||