246 NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
colder
than other stones. For engraving upon, indeed, it is by no means
adapted, inasmuch as it defies all grinding (attritum respuat) : it is
not, however, entirely invincible, since it is engraved upon and cut
into shape (scribitur et figuratur) by means of the diamond." In the
preceding passage Solinus has noticed the production of cinnamon in the
same district, which, as the native country of that spice, must have
lain very far south in the Indian Ocean. '·' AEthiopia" and " India"
are frequently used indiscriminately by the writers of the Decline ;
Heliodorus, for instance, talks of the gymnosophists, bamboos, and
amethysts of the former country—things all peculiar to the latter.
Three
characters in the above passage apply to our Sapphire, and to no other
gem; the lustrous sky-blue colour, its liability to be clouded with
shades of indigo or with watery blue, and its pre-eminent hardness—the
last quality, indeed, being possessed by it in the next degree to the
Diamond. Pliny's account of the Hyacinthus, already quoted, agrees in
the main with the above, though his description of the gem is far from
being so explicit as that of Solinus, who was evidently a connoisseur
in precious stones, and throughout the whole of his compilation has
successfully laboured to rectify and elucidate the somewhat Joose and
confused language of the great naturalist. Solinus, to judge from his
style and certain historical allusions to be discovered in his text,*
flourished two centuries after Pliny, when the active commercial
intercourse with India, established in the reign of Trajan, had made
the Romans
