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few, however, are found there big enough for Seals to be engraved on: the ſmall ones are very numerous, inſomuch that they uſe them for ſoldering of Gold; which Purpoſe they ſerve in the manner of Chryſocolla. Some have imagined them, indeed, to be of the Chryſocolla Kind, and in Colour they certainly are very like.
XLVII. [1]The Chryſocolla is found
- ↑ The preceding Account of the Cyprian Emeralds muſt appear very ſtrange to any one who imagines the Chryſocolla of the Moderns to be the Subſtance with which I here claſs thoſe ſuppoſed Gems: but it is to be obſerved, that the Chryſocolla of the Antients here mentioned, and meant in that Account, was a Subſtance very different from, and indeed not at all reſembling what is at preſent known by that Name.
Our Borax, which we call Chryſocolla for the ſame Reaſon which obtained the original Chryſocolla its Name; its Uſe in ſoldering Gold; is a Subſtance which reſembles that of the Antients in no one thing but that Property; and is a Salt, made by the Evaporation of an ill-taſted and foul Water, of which there are Springs in Perſia, Muſcovy, and Tartary.
The Chryſocolla of this Author, and of the Antients, was a ſparry Matter, of a beautiful green Colour, found in Copper Mines; or if green Colour, found in Copper Mines; or if
ſelf alſo favours, that they were of the Chryſocolla Kind; for he adds, they were evidently of the ſame Colour. This Opinion was unqueſtionably very juſt, and theſe Emeralds, as they were called, were no other than a larger, clearer, and purer Kind of Chryſocolla, differing from the common Chryſocolla of thoſe Times in nothing but that they were of a brighter Colour and purer Texture, from there having been leſs of terreſtrial or other heterogene Matter, aſſumed into them at their original Formation. Their anſwering the Purpoſes of Chryſocolla in ſoldering Gold, is alone a ſufficient Proof of the Truth of this, for had they been real Emeralds, or any thing elſe truly of the Gem Kind, they never could have ſerved for ſuch a Uſe.
