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Ch. 6: Carbunculus, Ruby

Ch. 5: Aurum, Gold Page of 377 Ch. 6: Carbunculus, Ruby Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
CARBUNCULUS.
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CARBUNCULUS: "Ανθραξ: Ruby, and Garnet.
The modern name for this stone, Ruby, Rubino, is merely an epithet expressive of its distinctive colour, as being the Med variety of the Hyacinthus. For, one of the inexplicable chemical enigmas of Nature, the Ruby and the Sapphire, though differing so greatly in appearance, are chemically the same substance, pure Alumina. For the same reason Marbodus calls this division of the Hyacinthus "Granaticus," from its resemblance in tint to the crimson juice of the pomegranate.
The Ruby was the first 'Ανθραξ of Theophrastus (18), a name signifying a live coal, because " it was blood red in colour but if held up against the sun, assumed
the appearance of a burning piece of charcoal." He terms it " very valuable, insomuch that a small ring-stone used to sell for 40 gold staters (40 guineas)," a statement which could hardly apply, in his age of high civilization and ex­tended commerce, to our Garnet or Carbunoler a common stone, and produced abundantly in many parts of Europe. The true Ruby must likewise be included amongst the numerous species of the Carbunculus described by Pliny (xxxvii. 25), though, as De Laet has justly observed (i. 2), there can be no doubt that he classed under that generic name every kind of red, transparent, fiery stone: the Pyrope, the Almandine, and the Red Jacinth, equally with our Ruby. One of the qualities, however, which Pliny assigns to his Carbunculi, that of not being affected by the
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Ch. 5: Aurum, Gold Page of 377 Ch. 6: Carbunculus, Ruby
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