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Introduction

King: Precious Stones and Gems Page of 453 Introduction Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
NATURAL HISTORY
OF
PRECIOUS STONES, METALS, AND GEMS.
INTRODUCTION.
MINERALOGY OF THE ANCIENTS.
Pliny has quoted by name numerous mineralogists, for the most part Greeks, from whom in great measure he drew the materials for books xxxvi. and xxxvii. of his Natural History. The prin­cipal of these, to judge from the character of his quotations, and his incidental notices of the authors, were the following:— Sotacus, cited as " one of the most ancient writers on the sub­ject" (xxxvi. 38), apparently a physician, like Ctesias, at the Persian court: for he stated in his work (" scripsit") that he had seen the wondrous gem, the Dracontias " apud Regem " in the possession of the King ; who, being designated by this sole title, could in accordance to Grecian usage have been no other than the king of l'ersia. He therefore must have flourished before the Macedonian conquest. Theophrastus, Aristotle's successor, much of whose little treatise Pliny has incorporated into book xxxvi. Sudines and Zenothemis, his main authorities as regards the true precious stones : the latter writer had evidently visited India, as appears from his account of the Sardonyx, its native localities, and how employed by the natives. Nicander, probably the physician, author of the Thoriaca, into whose poetical pharmacopoeia precious stones entered largely by reason of their supposed native virtues. Democritus, the philosopher of Abdera,
King: Precious Stones and Gems Page of 453 Introduction
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