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Ch. 10: Garnet

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Garnet                       109
vitreous; it is transparent to opaque. Most varieties of garnet fuse to brown or black glass.
In Dana's Mineralogy, Garnet is Carbunculus dodecahedrus: order Hyalina. In crystallo­graphy the primary form of garnet is the rhom­bic dodecahedron. The cleavage is indistinct parallel with the faces of the dodecahedron. Be­sides the primary twelve-sided form, with rhom­bic faces, the secondary forms of garnet crystals include trapezohedrons—twenty-four-sided forms
__with faces shaped like trapeziums; then there
are combinations of these forms, one of which has thirty-sis faces. The tendency of garnet is to crystallise and it is usually found in crystals; these range from tiny ones the size of a grain of sand up to those of several pounds in weight.
The name garnet, according to one version, is derived from the Latin granatus, meaning like a grain, because of the resemblance of its crys­tals in size and colour to the seeds of the pomegranate.
A carbuncle, in the popular conception, is a specific precious stone, but it does not exist in scientific mineralogy, and in the verbiage of dealers now, its meaning is merely any worthy red translucent stone cut en cabochon. Some writers, who seem otherwise generally well in-
Ch. 10: Garnet Page of 451 Ch. 10: Garnet
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