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Naxium, Emery

Naxium, Emery Page of 453 Obsidianum, Obsidian Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
NAXIUM.                                       251
goat's blood. Certainly to persons unacquainted with the art of engraving, the ability to sink designs deep and rounded in out­line in the most obdurate of natural substances, gems, must have appeared miraculous, and only to be explained by the existence of some secret means for softening the hardness into a plastic consistency. Such a wonderful property would be naturally ascribed by an Oriental to the blood of a serpent or worm, crea­tures figuring so largely in magical operations. Hence we find the Indian Diamond first made known to the Greeks by Sotacus as the Dracontias, and only found in the serpent's head.
Earth-worms indeed are recommended as a menstruum for softening glass by Heraclius, who wrote a treatise, ' De Artibus Romanorum,' probably in the seventh century, in a barbarous and often unintelligible jargon. However, if we choose to believe his assertion,
" Nil tibi scribo quidem quod non prius esse probassum,"
the following recipe would decide the question :—" Collect fat earth-worms as turned up by the plough, vinegar, and the hot blood out of a big he-goat fed on strengthening herbs ; mix all together, and so anoint the bright shining bowl, and then engrave upon it with fragments of the hard stone called Pyrites." This was the method, he prefaces, directed by the art. (See Vitrum.)
Naxium, Emery Page of 453 Obsidianum, Obsidian
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