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Introduction

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8           NATURAL HISTORY OP PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
history of the articles, of which he evidently knew nothing. One thing however is apparent, that he drew his materials from another source than did his Latin, or rather Gallic, contemporary.
The causes of these virtues, he says, had been investigated in ancient times by Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and Democritus; and more recently by Alexander of Aphrodisia (in the third century), " a person very ready to explain all mysteries of whatever nature."
About a century later appears Mohammed Ben Mansur, who may justly claim the honour of being the first to compose a really scientific and systematic treatise on the subject, in his ' Book on Precious Stones,' dedicated to the Abbaside Sultan of Persia, Abu Naser Beharderchan. In this work ho treats of each stone under three heads, viz. " Properties, Varieties, and Places producing it." The knowledge of the characters of minerals displayed throughout this treatise is absolutely miraculous, considering the age that produced it. He actually anticipates by many centuries the founders of the modern science in Europe, Hauy, Mohl, &c, in several points, such as in defining the different species of the Corundum, and in basing his distinctions upon the specific gravity and the hardness of the several kinds.8
Marbodus was probably the author of the metrical version, in Norman French, of his ' Lapidarium,' which is found in the same MS., written in a contemporary hand. The universal reception of the absurd science promulgated by Psellus and Marbodus, naturally led to the multiplication of treatises upon stones con­sidered mainly as medicinal or magical agents, and thus has occasioned the loss of the invaluable works of such acute and experienced observers as Sotacus, Sudines, and Zenothemis. To this was added another cause of neglect amongst the Latins: Pliny's condensation of their treatises had produced the com-
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