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Carbunculus, Ruby

Carbunculus, Ruby Page of 453 Carbunculus, Ruby Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
     
     
 
146 CARBUNCULUS.
stone given by Solinusis, according to bis custom, much more de­finite tban the above, and more that of the practical gem-dealer. He calls the species " Lychnites," because they shine most by lamp­light ; it is both of a transparent purple and of a light red, and attracts bits of thread, straws, &c, when rubbed, or heated in the sun. It is very difficult to engrave, and then pulls away the wax as though by the bite of a living creature, " velut quodam animalis morsu." Now all these qualities can be found com­bined in no other stone but the Ruby. The best still come from India (Ceylon), though inferior ones are sometimes found in Bohemia.3 The best Ruby burns with the redness of the alchermes dye ; the Balais is of the same tint more diluted, or of a lilac; the Spinel, of the richest crimson tinged with blue. In hardness they are only surpassed by the Diamond and the Sapphire ; in fact, none but Oriental artists have attempted to engrave upon them in modern times. But the character noted by both these ancient mineralogists, which decides the question beyond all cavil, is their remarkable electricity. I have ascer­tained by actual experiment (and seem to have been the first to make the discovery) that both the Spinel, and the Balais possess this property in the highest degree ; to the same extent indeed as the Sapphire or Brazilian Topaz. That early author Erasmus Stella (1517) interprets Lychnites by Almandine ; but the latter, a mere species of the Garnet, is non-electric, a fact which entirely excludes it from the descriptions of Pliny and Solinus.
It is curious that the name Spinel should be merely an equi­valent of Carbunculus, being a diminutive of attuoc, στηνθηρ, a spark. Theophrastus (13) describes by this name a mineral found at Binœ, which broken to pieces and piled up in the sun ignites spontaneously, the more readily if sprinkled with water ; but this must therefore have been Iron Pyrites.
" Balais " is absurdly explained by De Boot as a corruption of Palatium, being the " abode " or matrix of the true Euby, accord-
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
     
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