CHAP. 23.—SARDONYX; THE SEVERAL VARIETIES OF IT. DEFECTS
IN THE SARDONYX.
Thus far we have spoken in reference to the stones, which,
it is generally agreed, belong to the highest rank; in obedience,
more particularly, to a decree
1 that has been passed by the
ladies to that effect. There is less certainty with respect to
those upon which the men as well have been left to form a
judgment; seeing that the value of each stone depends more
particularly upon the caprice of the individual and the rivalry
that exists in reference thereto; as, for example, when Claudius
Cæsar was so much in the habit of wearing the smaragdus and
the sardonyx.
2 The first Roman who wore a sardonyx, according
to Demostratus, was the elder Africanus, since whose
time this stone has been held in very high esteem at Rome: for
which reason, we shall give it the next place after the opal.
By sardonyx, as the name
3 itself indicates, was formerly understood
a sarda with a white ground beneath it, like the flesh
beneath the human finger-nail; both parts of the stone being
equally transparent. Such, according to Ismenias, Demostratus,
Zenothemis, and Sotacus, is the sardonyx of India; the last
two giving the name of "blind" sardonyx to all the other
stones of this class which are not transparent, and which have
now entirely appropriated the name to themselves. For, at
the present day, the Arabian sardonyx presents no traces whatever
of the Indian sarda,
4 it being a stone that has been found
to be characterized by several different colours of late; black
or azure for the base, and vermilion, surrounded with a line of
rich white, for the upper part, not without a certain glimpse
5
of purple as the white passes into the red.
6
We learn from Zenothemis that in his time these stones
were not held by the people of India in any high esteem, although
they are found there of so large a size as to admit of
the hilts of swords being made of them. It is well known, too,
that in that country they are exposed to view by the mountain-streams,
and that in our part of the world they were formerly
valued from the fact that they are nearly the only ones
7 among
the engraved precious stones that do not bring away the wax
when an impression is made. The consequence is, that our
example has at last taught the people of India to set a value
upon them, and the lower classes there now pierce them even,
to wear them as ornaments for the neck; the great proof, in
fact, at the present day, of a sardonyx being of Indian origin.
Those of Arabia are remarkable for their marginal line of
brilliant white, of considerable breadth, and not glistening in
hollow fissures in the stone or upon the sides, but shining upon
the very surface, at the margin, and supported by a ground
intensely black beneath. In the stones of India, this ground
is like wax in colour,
8 or else like cornel, with a circle also of
white around it. In some of these stones, too, there is a play
of colours like those of the rainbow, while the surface is redder
even than the shell of the sea-locust.
9
Those stones which are like honey in appearance, or of a
fæculent
10 colour—such being the name given to one defect in
them—are generally disapproved of. They are rejected also
when the white zone blends itself with the other colours, and
its limits are not definitely marked; or if, in like manner, it is
irregularly intersected by any other colour; it being looked
upon as an imperfection if the regularity of any one of the
colours is interrupted by the interposition of another. The
sardonyx of Armenia is held in some esteem, but the zone
round it is of a pallid hue.