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SARDIUS.
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loured
red or yellow by oxide of iron, and its superior Oriental variety the
Sard, hold the first place in the list of substances employed by the
ancient engravers, presenting us, alone, with as many intagli cut upon
them as all the other species of gems collectively.
The
Carnelian is found abundantly in many parts of Europe, wherever the
shingle on the coast is composed of flint-pebbles, or in the beds of
mountain-torrents of similar formation, and scattered together with
Agates over the Egyptian Desert. It is of the same nature as the latter
stone, only differing in the arrangement of its colours, and seems to
be what Pliny distinguishes from the rest of the species by the name of
Sard-achates, just as his Leuc-achates is the Calcedony, or "White
Carnelian.
In
this dull red, earthy, and softer species are the most ancient intagli
usually cut, the Egyptian and Etruscan scarabei, and the greater part
of the other ring-stones engraved in Etruria. The beds of the Tuscan
rivers furnished a plentiful supply of this material; even at the
present day the shingle of the brook Mugnone,* near Florence, yields
Carnelians in great abundance. But the beautiful transparent species,
the true Sard, came from India alone. Already (b.c. 400)
Ctesias, in his ' Indica,' mentions the " great mountains out of which
are dug the Sardö, the Onyx, and other gems," lying fifteen days'
journey from the sandy desert (between Cutch and Moultan) ; and again,
the " mount Sardö, and the mountains where the gem Sardö is dug" (Ind.
§ 5). And Plato, with a traditional reminiscence of India in his mind
(Phsedo, p. HO), describes the " True World " (Paradise) as a region
where
* Whither the simpleton Calandrino, according to Boccaccio's tale (viii. 3) goes with his tormentors Bruno and Buffalmacco in quest of the gem Heliotrope, that was to give him the power of becoming invisible at will.
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