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Jaspis, Jasper, Quartz-gems

Hyacinthus, Sapphire, Corundum Page of 453 Jaspis, Jasper, Quartz-gems Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
     
     
 
202 JASPIS.
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
 
Greenness and more or less translucency were the two essential characters of the ancient Jaspis (Plin. xxxvii. 37). Epiphanius has : " The Sixth Stone, a Jasper ; this in appearance resembles the Emerald, like which it is green, but duller and more obscure, and having its substance green inside, resembling verdigris. There is another sort, greener than the sea, deeper in colour and in degree," &c. Hence Orpheus (264) terms it "the Jasper, colour of Spring." The first of the four kinds into which Dioscorides divides it is " that like Emerald." The exact stone intended by this definition is pointed out with the utmost exact­ness by Pliny's notice that the sort like an Emerald, surrounded by an opaque white line, and hence called Grammatias, or Polygrammos, if having several such lines, were worn as amulets in the East. Or, as Epiphanius explains it : " That with four veins, we have heard, is good to keep off spectres ; at least so say the magicians." This verdant colour furnished the idea to King Polemo for the pretty epigram1 (Anth. ix. 746) " Upon a herd of cattle engraved in a green Jasper," where they all seem alive, and are confined within a golden fold to prevent their straying beyond the verdant mead. And another (ix. 750) : " If
  
 
 
  
 
 
 
 
  
     
Hyacinthus, Sapphire, Corundum Page of 453 Jaspis, Jasper, Quartz-gems
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