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Smaragdus, Emerald

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SMARAGDUS.
The generic name Smaragdus is undoubtedly the Greek form of the Persian " Samarrad," as all the productions of the East retained amongst the ancients their Oriental names, more or less modified according to the greater or less degree of harshness in their original forms, just as we have " Mar­garita" from "Merwerid," "Hyacinthus" from "Jacut," and " Sardius " from " Sered," and, more curiously, " Almas "' appearing as " Adamas," with the implied idea of invincibi­lity, according to the same law that converted " Alfas " into " Elephas."
Emeralds were employed in preference to all other gems by the Persians for adorning those jewelled goblets which owed their origin to their luxurious pomp. Thus Theophrastus (35) describes them (including perhaps the Turquois) as the gems used for the ΑιθοκοΧΚητα, and collected by horsemen in the deserts, which Pliny, going a little more into details, informs us were the Bactrian sort. Such a mode of ornamentation was long kept up in Persia. Mohammed Ben Mansur says, " Several bits of Emerald united together upon one surface, by means of mina, are called Astar." This art flourished amongst the Romans. Pliny indignantly exclaims, " We weave cups out of Emeralds," i. e. they were connected together into a continuous whole by means of a gold skeleton frame, like the Byzantine imitations of the same in enamel ; and Martial talks of a single cup rob­bing many a finger of its wonted decoration (xiv. 109) :—
" Gemmatum Scythicis ut lueeat ignibus aurum Adspice, quot digitos exuit iste calix !"
Hence the tradition, mentioned by Procopius, that Solomon's sacred vessels were of this character, which in its turn originated the legend of the Sacro Catino.
Treatises were extant in Pliny's time (75), showing how false Emeralds might be made by staining rock-costal, as well as other gems —a fraud which he terms the most lucrative in the world. This was probably done by plunging the heated crystal into verdigris dissolved in turpentine. The crystal becomes full of minute cracks, into which the colouring fluid insinuates itself, and tinges the entire substance. The great art is so to regulate
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