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Opalus, Opal

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272
OPALUS.
Opals, and of a size far exceeding that of Nonius. A gigantic specimen is exhibited in the Imperial Cabinet at Vienna.
" Some," says Pliny, " have given to this stone, on account of its pre-eminent loveliness, the name of the Pœdcros, or Cupid ;" for the same reason it was distinguished in the Latin and German of Mediaeval times as the Orphanus, or Waise. Others made the Pœderos a distinct species, called Sangenon by the Indians ; but produced in many and different localities, Egypt, Arabia, most abundantly in Pontus, in Galatia, Thasos, and Cyprus. Of this the best sort presented somewhat of the beauty of the Opal, though seldom free from flaws (scaber) ; but its colour was made up ex­clusively of purple and sky-blue (aëre), the emerald-green was entirely wanting. In this species, " to be overcharged with a wine-colour was preferable to the being too pale and watery "—terms, these, which show that by Pœderos was understood the bright Indian Amethyst, in parts almost colourless, in parts clouded with the richest purple, and often exhibiting a slight iridescence in the flaws to which its body is so subject : a material this so admired by the Romans, that, employing it always cut in a bossy cabo­chon, they placed but the most minute intaglio upon its centre, to detract as little as possible from the native beauty of the stone. In fact, Pliny (40), after stating that the perfection of the Amethyst consisted in a rose-colour, as it wore borrowed from the Ruby, shining mildly amidst the purple, and most striking when the gem is held up against the light (in suspectu), adds, " that such gems some prefer to designate as the Pœderos, or the Anteros, others as the gem of Venus." Again (46), he describes the Pœderos as " the chief amongst the colourless stones (candidarum dux), though it was a question under what colour it ought to be classed : the name having been so much bandied about amongst the beauties of other species, so that the mere distinc­tion of loveliness had become of itself a name." Meaning that this name of Cupid had been indiscriminately applied to the most elegant specimens of stones of many different sorts, being in fact a mere epithet of beauty, not of species. " Nevertheless, the actual kind (or the kind specially so designated) comes up to our expectations of what is due to such a name. For in a trans­parent Crystal are united a sky-blue, turning to a peculiar
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