298 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
course, our Oriental topaz, a variety of corundum, nor was it the true topaz; neither is it at all likely that the name tarshish signified,
at least originally, the genuine topaz ; most probably it denoted a
variety of quartz which occurs in Spain. This is originally black, but
is decolorized by heating to a deep brown, and if the heating be
prolonged the stone becomes paler and eventually entirely transparent.
The ancients were familiar with this property. In ancient Egyptian
records a stone called thehen is frequently mentioned as a
material from which amulets were made. This Egyptian name signified
primarily a "yellow stone," and might designate either the topaz or
the yellow jasper, known and used in Egypt at a very early date; the
topaz was probably not known there earlier than 500 or 600 b.c. Hence, in spite of the unquestionable difficulty offered by the geographical name tarshish, which
might seem to confine us to a Spanish origin for the stone, the
probabilities favor the selection of the yellow jasper as the tenth gem
in Aaron's breastplate. For that made with pious zeal by those who
labored to renew the glories of the Old Jerusalem, we choose the
topaz,—possibly, indeed, a fine specimen of the genuine topaz,—for
whatever the quality of the yellow stone originally brought from
Tartessus, the name may well have been applied to the genuine topaz
when that stone became known to the Jews, either in Babylonia, or after
their return to Palestine. The tarshish was engraved with the name Naphtali.
XI. Shoham. [ùrie] The
Septuagint translates "beryl," but in our Authorized Version and in
that used by Roman Catholics, the so-called Douai Version, the word is
invariably rendered "onyx." Diodo rus Siculus and Dionysius Periegetes,
writing in the first century b.c., are the first classical authors who use the name beryl.
