Scots; the pendent Carbuncle to her necklace being valued at 500 crowns—an enormous sum in those days.

The Guarnaccino seems to be a mean between the Ruby and this gem, since it unites the distinctive marks of both, combining the colour of wine with the rosy tint of the former. It is a very splendid stone; fine Roman intagli, and frequently imperial portraits, occur upon it. When of the first quality it can with difficulty be distinguished from the Spinel Ruby. Modern engravers have seldom employed the Garnet except for works in relievo, and especially for small portrait The stone is extremely hard to work, and also very brittle-difficulties which they cannot overcome; a circumstance that affords a much stronger testimony to the skill of the ancient artists, who have left us such highly-finished works in so refractory a material.

cameos.

A variety, though rare, is sometimes found of a beautiful rose colour, much resembling the Balais Ruby; on this kind I have also seen good intagli, especially one at Rome (in 1848), Apollo seated and playing the lyre, of most admirable workmanship, but the gem accidentally broken in two, a misfortune to which all Garnets are peculiarly liable.

A very similar stone in appearance to this Rose Garnet is produced by roasting the Brazilian Topaz for several hours under hot ashes in a furnace: it thus changes its golden colour into a bright pink, and at the same time acquires additional lustre.

JACINTH.

The modern Jacinth derives its name from the yellow variety of the ancient Hyacinthus, with which it was confounded in the times of barbarism. The greater part, however, of what are now termed Jacinths are only Cinnamon Stones or a reddish-brown kind of Garnet of little beauty or

value. But the true Jacinth belongs to the Jargoon family, distinguished by having for its base the earth zircon, only found in this class of gems. There can be little doubt that our Jacinth was the ancient Lyncurium, a stone described by Theophrastus as resembling amber in levity, colour, power of refraction, and electrical properties. One kind is of a pale yellow, and extremely brilliant: there is also another of a rich orange brown, very agreeable to the eye.

The Lyncurium is thus described by Theophrastus (c. 28):—“This gem (the Emerald) is indeed extraordinary on account of its singular property of tinging water: and equally so is the Lyncurium; for out of this also signet-stones are engraved; and it is very hard, exactly like a real stone; for it attracts in the same manner as amber, some say not only straws and bits of wood, but even copper and iron, if they be in thin pieces, as Diocles also hath observed. It is highly transparent, and cold to the touch, and that produced by the male lynx is better than that of the female, aud that of the wild lynx better than that of the tame, in consequence both of the difference of their food, and the former having plenty of exercise, and the latter none; hence their secretions are the more limpid. Those experienced in the search find it by digging; for the animal endeavours to conceal the deposit, and scrapes up earth over it after he has voided it. There is a peculiar and tedious method of working up this substance also, as well as the Smaragdus.

The ancients used both sorts very frequently, both for intagli and for camei; but for the latter purpose they preferred the darker kind, which thus worked is very effective. This deep-coloured gem may have been the Morio, so named from its mulberry colour, which Pliny says was used for engravings in relief" ad ectypas sculpturas faciendas." The style of all engravings on this gem is very peculiar, so as to be

easily recognised even in the impression from such an intaglio. It is characterised by a kind of fluidity and roundness of all the lines, and a shallowness of engraving, perhaps adopted in order to avoid all risk of fracture in working so porous a stone. This porousness is manifest even to the naked eye; for a Jacinth held up against a strong light appears like a mass of petrified honey. The difficulty of engraving on the Lyncurium is alluded to by Theophrastus in the above passage; for, after mentioning that signet-stones were engraved out of this substance, he adds, "the working in it is somewhat more tedious" than in other stones: such at least appears to be the meaning of his obscure expression, γίνεται δε και κατεργασία τις αὐτου πλείων. If this version is correct we have here a distinct allusion to the peculiar style of the engravings in this stone, worked out as they are in a manner composed of flowing and shallow hollows, totally different from that found in other gems belonging to the same period. From the porousness of the stone, intagli cut upon it, in spite of its great hardness, usually have a very worn and scratched surface, so that a Jacinth intaglio, exhibiting a high polish on the exterior, may justly be suspected of being a modern work. Even the interior of the design, unless where protected by the unusual deepness of the cutting, will be found to have suffered in a singular manner from the effects of friction and of time. The finest intaglio in Jacinth at present known is doubtless the full-face portrait called that of Pompey, but more probably that of Mæcenas, formerly in the Herz Collection, which also derives additional value from the name of the artist АПолAQNIOY engraved upon it. A fine Jacinth is a splendid ornamental ring-stone, and much superior to the best Topaz, as it has a peculiar golden lustre mixed with its rich orange; however, it is at present completely out of fashion, and consequently of little value; such is the unreasoning caprice of the mode.

Pliny indeed denies the existence of a gem Lyncurium, which word, he asserts, is only another name for amber; but the descriptions he quotes of it from Theophrastus and Diocles, who write that it was used for signets, and was of the colour of fiery amber, are quite sufficient to identify it with our Jacinth, a favourite stone with the Greek artists of the age of these two authors. They also distinctly mention its strong attractive property when heated by friction.

As an ornamental stone the Jacinth may be distinguished from the Cinnamon Stone both by its porous texture, and above all by its electricity, a quality only found in the Diamond, Sapphire, Tourmaline, and this class of gems.

Most probably our Jacinth was also reckoned among the varieties of the Lychnis by Pliny, who makes this one of his classes of the genus Carbunculus. The Lychnis got its name from its supposed property of lighting lamps, "a lucernarum accensu." This wonderful power is mentioned by Orpheus, v. 270

"Dear to the gods, thou canst the sacred blaze,

Like to the crystal, on their altars raise."

It was divided into two sorts, one with a purple, the other with a red tinge. It possessed the property of attracting light objects when rubbed or heated in the sun, and it was imported from India. These particulars would seem to identify this stone with the Red Tourmaline or Rubellite, which is as electric as amber itself.1 Both Jacinths and Carbuncles were obtained by the ancients in masses of extraordinary bulk; Callistratus states that the Indians hollowed

3 So called as being supposed to be formed from the urine of the Lynx converted into stone when buried in the earth by that beast.

Except that the Tourmaline is

too soft a stone to answer the ancient description of the Lychnis, which was extremely difficult to engrave. See Ruby.

Carbunculi into cups holding a sextarius, or nearly one pint. I have myself seen a small antique bowl of the size of a Chinese teacup formed out of a single Garnet, and bearing its owner's name, KOAPOY, engraved on the inside.

The Lychnis is thus mentioned by Lucian, 'De Syria Dea :' "The goddess wears on her head a gem called Lychnis (lamp-stone), a name derived from its nature. From it a great and shining light is diffused in the night-time, so that the whole temple is thereby lighted up as though by many lamps burning. By day its lustre is more feeble, however it still presents a very fiery appearance." Alardus, a Dutchman, writing in the year 1539, caps this story with the following wonderful description of a similar gem:

"Amongst other stones of the most precious quality, and therefore beyond all price, and not to be estimated by any equivalent of human riches, the gift of that most noble lady Heldegarde, formerly wife of Theodoric, Count of Holland, which she had caused to be set in a gold tablet of truly inestimable value, and which she had dedicated to St. Adalbert, the patron of the town of Egmund; among these gems I say was a Chrysolampis, commonly called an Osculan, which in the night-time so lighted up the entire chapel on all sides that it served instead of lamps for the reading of the Hours late at night, and would have served the same purpose to the present day had not the hope of gain caused it to be stolen by a runaway Benedictine monk, the most greedy creature that ever went on two legs. He threw it into the sea close by Egmund, for fear of being convicted of sacrilege by the possession of such a gem. Some traces of this stone still remain in the upper border of the before-mentioned tablet." To this circumstantial narrative we may safely apply the line

"The tale of the 'jewel''s a damnable bounce;"