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Jaspis, Jasper, Quartz-gems

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206
JASPIS.
and not very brilliant nor yet very deficient : others are like Rock-crystal ; another somewhat dull, having lines in the middle ; another, called ' the Ancient,' like snow, or froth of the sea, said by magicians to be feared by the beasts of the field and by spectres."
Another of Pliny's class Jaspis is " starred with red spots ; " this is not the Heliotrope (which he describes accurately in 60), but a white Calcedony full of little red spots, called now St. Stephen's Stone, and formerly venerated as thus dyed by its em­ployment in his martyrdom. Pliny reckons this at the end of his list of Jaspers amongst a number clearly of the common Cal-cedonies, one containing a cloud,8 another tipped with snow, a third like salt, a fourth smoke-stained and hence called Capnias. And as a conclusive proof that he is here talking of the Calce­dony, he mentions having seen one fifteen inches high, carved into a statuette of Nero in armour.
The conclusion to be derived from all the foregoing details is undoubtedly this : that the Jaspis of the ancients was our Calce­dony (Silica and Alumina) : in its primary sense the variety coloured green by nickel, now called Plasma, but in after times embracing the blue, the purple, the yellow, and whity-brown shades of the same substance.9
The modern Jasper, distinguished from the modern Agate as being quite opaque, and containing more iron, was certainly the stone known to the ancients as the Achates ; the varieties of this chiefly employed by the ancient gem-engravers were :—
1. The Black : an extremely fine, close-grained substance, per­fectly opaque, and taking a high polish, the good preservation of
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