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246
NAXIUM.
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Although the
use of this mineral is coeval with the first invention of
gem-engraving, which indeed in its proper sense cannot be effected
without its aid, yet the earliest mention of it by a specific name is
that in Dioscorides (a contemporary of the Triumvirs), who has (v.
165), " The Smyris is a stone with which gem-engravers polish the
gems." Theophrastus (44) mentions the use of the mineral, but appears
not to have had any distinctive denomination for it, his words merely
being, " And again, the stone wherewith they engrave signets is the
same as that of which whetstones are made, or else similar to it, and
the best kind is brought from Armenia."
The
very chapter in which Theophrastus had given some details of the
process is unfortunately one of the most corrupt in the whole treatise
; but it may be gathered from what remains that he expresses his
surprise that the substance in question can be cut up and shaped by a
steel tool, and yet can bite upon gems that the steel would not touch.
Ακόνα with the Greeks, as Cotes with
the Latins, were terms used indifferently to denote the substance with
which steel-tools were sharpened and hard-stones engraved, inasmuch as
a piece of compact Emery was employed in both cases and in much the
same manner as a file, not as now in powder applied by another
mechanical contrivance. Dioscorides prescribes (v. 167) "the dust
rubbed off a Naxian whetstone by the steel sharpened upon it." Pliny,
after stating (xxxvi. 10), "For polishing marble statues, and also for
engraving and filing down gems, the Naxium long held the first
rank ; thus are called the whetstones (cotes) produced in the isle of
Cyprus," and (xxxvii. 32) " the Peridot is the only precious stone that
yields to the file, all the others arc
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