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Lyncurium, Jacinth

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LYNCURIUM.
217
next chapter, stating its properties, and that the Greeks got it from Liguria, i. e. from the Celts, the nearest to them. Besides, the coldness of the substance, and its being used for intagli, prove that Theophrastus is describing an amber-coloured stone : for real Amber is remarkably warm to the touch, and much too soft and brittle to be used for engraving on. Pliny rejected the account without due examination, partly disgusted by the ridi­culous story of its production ; partly, because the stone known to Theophrastus, was then reckoned amongst the Chrysolithi by the Romans.
Epiphanius (De XII. Lapid. Ligurius) suspected that the Aiyovpiov of the LXX., of which he could find no account in any Greek mineralogist, was the Hyacinthus of his own times, because so important a stone could not have been omitted by Moses ; and here we find the first germ of the subsequent con­fusion of two very different things. Isidorus, however, correctly explains " Ligarius " as synonymous with Lyncurium, abbre­viating the words of Theophrastus.
There can be no doubt that the gem described by the latter author is our Jacinth (Zircon), the yellow Jargoon, distinguished by having for its chemical base the earth Zirconia, peculiar to this family. This exactly resembles Amber in colour, refraction, electricity, and levity, and the sole distinction is its excessive hardness. We find in it also the two kinds mentioned by the Greeks : a dark orange, extremely agreeable in tint (the male) ; and a pale yellow of extraordinary lustre (the female).
Another argument for their identity is the frequency of its employment by the ancients, for intagli in the earliest times, and by the Romans for camei also. But for the latter purpose they preferred the darker kind, which, thus worked out, is extremely effective. The style of all engravings in this gem is altogether peculiar, so as to be easily recognised even in the impression from such an intaglio. It is characterised by a certain fluidity and roundness of all the lines, and a shallowness of engraving adopted apparently to avoid all risk of fracture in working so porous a stone. This porousness is manifest even to the naked eye, for a Jacinth held up against a strong light appears like a mass of petrified honey. This difficulty in the engraving is remarked
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