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Solis Gemma, Moon-stone

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NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
  
 
 
  
 
SOLIS GEMMA: Adularia.
The definition of the " Solis Gemma," given by Pliny (67) as " colourless, but diffusing brilliant rays in a circle, after the fashion of that luminary," exactly describes the Adula-rian Felspar, now, however, known to lapidaries as the Moon-stone, from the silvery radiance of the large orb that illumines its convex surface. Sometimes the ground has a slight tinge of the pale blue peculiar to the asteria Sap­phire. Though now abundantly produced in Mount Adula (St. Gothard) of the Alps, whence its epithet Adularian, the best examples come from Ceylon : therefore there can be little doubt the Bomans had received consignments of it amongst the other products of Taprobane. A very curious variety, the "Fish's Eye," greenish in tint, becomes red by transmitted light, going through the same changes as a bead of sohmetze paste.
Pliny's Selenites (Moon-stone) seems to be a variety of the last, " shining with a yellow lustre from a colourless ground, containing an image of the moon, which (if the story be true) daily waxes or wanes, according to the state ofrthat luminary.* It is said to be found in Arabia." And
* The original notion doubtless being that it was the Moon's image in the gem that sympathised with her changes, the mediaeval love of the marvellous readily transferred this property to the entire bulk of the stone. It must be observed that Marbodus describes its colour as that of the Jasper or the Emerald—another indication that he had the true Ceylonese gern in view.
  
 
 
  
       
Sardonyx Page of 384 Solis Gemma, Moon-stone
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