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Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald

Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Page of 377 Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
       
     
 
284
NATURAL HISTORY OF PRECIOUS STONES, &c.
 
 

 
 
to the Greek colonies lying around the Black Sea, or to the Persians on the Caspian. The epithet " Scythian" is generally used by Martial to designate the most precious sort.
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
And again in a very remarkable passage describing the plunder of a palace of the Dacian Decebalus, he alludes to his gold-plate (a most unlooked-for article to be found in the possession of a barbarian prince), inlaid with such stones which he must have procured through his Tartar allies (xii. 15).
 
 

 
 
 
 

 
 
Next in value, as well as in the locality of their origin, were the Bactrian, found, it was said, in the crevices of the rocks during the prevalence of the Etesian winds : " for then especially did they sparkle in the ground when those winds had swept away the sands." These, however, were much smaller than the Scythian sort. Dionysius Periegetes describes the Indians as gathering both " ver­dant Beryls" and grass-green Jaspers out of the gravel of their torrents; apparently including Emeralds under the former designation, for nowhere does he mention the " Smaragdus.''
The Egyptian held the third rank. Pliny notices nothing more of them than their extreme hardness, equal to that of the Scythian : these were extracted from the rocks round about Coptos, in the Thebaid. They are not to be confounded with the Ethiopian, found, according to Juba, twenty-five days' journey (which would make 500
 
 

 
       
Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald Page of 377 Ch. 9: Smaragdus, Emerald
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