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Solis Gemma, Moon-stone

Solis Gemma, Moon-stone Page of 384 Sucoinum, Amber Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
302                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
at all, being considerably barder, and to all appearance a variety of the yellow quartz. There can be little doubt tbat this was Pliny's Sehnites, but its yellow splendour has occasioned its transference from the pale Dian to the golden Sol. The Selenites, with the same idea of lunar sympathy attached to it, ranks amongst the earliest of stones recog­nised as precious, for it adorns tbat most ancient of all jewels, the necklace of Harmonia (' Precious Stones.'p. 306). But the later Greeks give the name (and Aphroselenon) to a totally different thing, Talc (which we have borrowed from the Arabic), because "only to be discovered by moonlight ; " though the resemblance of its sheen to that luminary's were a better and a more probable derivation. It singu­larly exemplifies the persistence of old religions beliefs under altered forms to find the Germans still calling Talc, " Marien-Glas," and " unser-lieben-Frauen-Eis," " St Mary's glass, and " Our Lady's ice."
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Solis Gemma, Moon-stone Page of 384 Sucoinum, Amber
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