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CHAPTER XXIII. MOONSTONE, SELENITE, AND SUNSTONE.
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INERALOGISTS of the present day apply the name Selenite to
the finer varieties of Gypsum —a common mineral much too soft to be of
any real service in jewellery, yet presenting in its fibrous forms so
pleasing a lustre as to be occasionally cut and polished as an
ornamental stone. This fibrous Gypsum or Selenite occurs in the New Red
Marls of Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and especially in the
neighbourhood of Newark, in Nottinghamshire, where it is worked to a
limited extent into beads and other trivial objects. Selenite derives
its name from its soft lustre, suggestive of moonshine ; but though the
word literally signifies " moonstone," no jeweller would think of
designating it by such a term—the word " moonstone " being invarably
applied to an entirely different stone.
"
The Selenite," says Adreas Baccius, " is a kind of gem which doth
contain in it the image of the moon, and it doth represent it
increasing and decreasing according to the increase and decrease of the
moon, in its monthly changes." The Greeks called it Aphroselene, which signifies the splendour of the moon, or a beam of the moon, whilst the Romans called it Lunaris. Dioscorides
says "it is found in Arabia, and is endued with virtues, as of making
trees fruitful, and of curing epilepsy ; " he adds that " in the night
it will illuminate the place that is next to it."
Whatever the Moonstone of the Ancients may have been, the Moonstone of the present day is an opalescent
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