previous next

CHAP. 34.—PRASIUS; THREE VARIETIES OF IT.

There are numerous other kinds also of green stones. To the more common class belongs prasius;1 one variety of which is disfigured with spots2 like blood, while another kind is marked with three streaks of white. To all these stones chrysoprasus3 is preferred, which is also similar to the colouring matter of the leek, but varies in tint between topazos and gold. This stone is found of so large a size as to admit of drinking- boats4 even being made of it, and is cut into cylinders very frequently.

1 The stone now known as "Prase" is a vitreous, leek-green, variety of massive quartz.

2 This may possibly have been Plasma, a faintly translucent Chalcedony, approaching jasper, having a greenish colour, sprinkled with yellow and whitish dots, and a glistening lustre. Or, perhaps, Bloodstone or Heliotrope, a kind of jasper.

3 See the preceding Chapter, and Note 31.

4 "Cymbia." Drinking vessels shaped like a boat.

The Natural History. Pliny the Elder. John Bostock, M.D., F.R.S. H.T. Riley, Esq., B.A. London. Taylor and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet Street. 1855.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Latin (Karl Friedrich Theodor Mayhoff, 1906)
hide Places (automatically extracted)

View a map of the most frequently mentioned places in this document.

hide References (4 total)
hideData/Identifiers
Citation URN: urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1:37.34
Document URN: urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus-eng1
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: