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Vitrum Annulare, Pastes

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352                 NATURAL HISTORY OF GEMS.
the summit of his wishes, especially when the emperor asked him, 'Does any one else know of this mode of tempering glass?' Now mark me. As soon as he had answered 'No,' the emperor ordered him to be beheaded then and there ; for if his invention had become general we should look upon gold as so much dirt." There may be something at the bottom of the legend, and it may be explained by supposing the substance not a true glass, but some composition representing the coloured kind in which the Roman scyphi were usually made. A ring found in a mummy-case once came into my hands, exactly resembling amber-coloured glass, but which was as flexible as india-rubber, being probably moulded in some resinous composi­tion. Now a bowl in a similar substance would exactly resemble glass, and yet be as ductile as the softest metal, even as thin pewter. Supposing such a counterfeit to have been passed off upon Tiberius for a new discovery in glass-making, the inventor's recompence for the trick, when detected, would have been sharp and summary, his patron not being one to let off an offender so easily as did the jocular Gallienus. Moreover, a few years ago there was exhumed from a tumulus in Ireland a perfectly pre­served bowl in Amber, of so large diameter that it was considered impossible it could have been hollowed out of a single block. It was ascertained at the time, by the ingenious discoverer of the relic, that bits of Amber boiled in turpentine can be easily reduced to a plastic mass, can be kneaded together, and moulded into a consistent whole; and this was supposed the true method by which this gigantic scyphus had been elaborated. Under "Succinum" will be found some ancient recipes for the purifying of Amber, and also for the staining it to imitate certain precious stones. This shows that the Roman lapidaries were fond of experimentalizing upon the capabilities of
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