CHAP. 19.—THE PRECIOUS STONE CALLED TANOS. CHALCOSMA-RAGDOS.

Among the smaragdi is also included the precious stone known as "tanos."[1] It comes from Persia, and is of an unsightly green, and of a soiled colour within. There is the chalcosmaragdos[2] also, a native of Cyprus, the face of which is mottled with coppery veins. Theophrastus relates that he had found it stated in the Egyptian histories, that a king of Babylon once sent to the king of Egypt a smaragdus[3] four cubits in length by three in breadth. He informs us, also, that in a temple of Jupiter in Egypt there was an obelisk made of four smaragdi, forty cubits in length, and four in breadth at one extremity, and two at the other. He says, too, that at the period at which he wrote, there was in the Temple of Hercules at Tyrus a large column made of a single smaragdus;[4] though very possibly it might only be pseudo-smaragdus, a kind of stone not uncommonly found in Cyprus, where a block had been discovered, composed, one half of smaragdus, and one half of jasper,[5] and the liquid in which had not as yet been entirely transformed. Apion, surnamed "Plistonices,"[6] has left a very recent statement, that there was still in existence, in his time, in the Labyrinth of Egypt, a colossal statue of Serapis made of a single smaragdus, nine cubits in height.

1. Supposed by Ajasson to be the Euclase, a brittle green stone, composed of silica, alumina, and glucina. Haüy gave it this name from the Greek words eu, "easily," and kla/w, "to break." According to Dana, however, Euclase was first brought from Peru: if such is the fact, we must, perhaps, look for its identification in Epidote, a green silicate of alumina.

2. "Brazen smaragdus." It was probably Dioptase, combined with copper Pyrites. See Notes 26, 28, and 29, above.

3. With reference to this statement and the others in this Chapter, Ajasson remarks that these stones can have been nothing but prases, green jaspers, fusible spaths, emerald quartz, and fluates of lime.

4. Herodotus mentions this smaragdus and the temple, B. ii. c. 44, as having been seen by himself.

5. "Iaspis." See Chapter 37 of this Book.

6. Meaning "the conqueror of many," probably; in reference to his contentious disposition. See end of B. xxx.