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and Maſſilia, from Ægypt, about the Cataracts of the Nile, and the Neighbourhood of Syene, a City of the Elephantines, and from the Country called Pſebos.
LXIII. In Cyprus alſo are found the Emerald and the Jaſper[1]; but what are
- ↑ The Jaſper and the Emerald in general have already been ſpoken of. The Bactrian Emeralds were allowed, as has been obſerved, the ſecond place in Value: Our Author's Account of them, and the Place and Manner in
actly diſtinguiſhed and aſcertained the Places of the one as well as the other.
The Carthaginian or Garamantine Carbuncle was, as I have obſerved in another Place, what we now call the Garnet, &c. This Place was ſo famous for it, that it was called by many the Carchedonius Lapis, Καρχηδόνιος λίθος.
Quo Carchedonios optas ignes lapideos
Nisi ut ſcintillent? Publ. Syr.
That the Carthaginian and Garamantine Carbuncle were really the ſame Stone, is aſcertained by Strabo, ἡ δὲ ὑπὲρ τῶν Γαιτούλων ἐϛὶν ἡ τῶν Γαραμάντων γῇ παράλληλος ἐκείνῃ, ὄθεν οἱ Καρχηδόνιοι κομίζονται λίθοι. And Epiphanius adds his Confirmation of this Place being famous for the Carbuncle, γίνεται δὲ ἐν Καρχηδόνι τῆς Λιβύης. Pliny, and other of the Antients, confirm alſo their being found in Egypt and Maſſila; and Salmaſius has very judiciouſly rendered the laſt mentioned Place intelligible, by altering it from Ψηφὼ, as it always before was written, to Ψηβὼ, the Name of a Kingdom in the inland part of Æthiopia. It is to be obſerved, however, that the following Ages grew nicer in regard to their Gems; for two of the Kinds we find here placed among the more perfect and valuable, the Egyptian, and (according to the juſt mentioned Emendation of Ψηβὸς) Æthiopian, were even before the Days of Pliny, ranked among the meaner Kinds; Archelaus & in Ægypto circa Thebas naſci tradidit fragiles, venoſas, morienti Carboni ſimiles. And, Satyrus Æthiopicos dicit eſſe pingues lucemque non emittentes, aut fundentes, ſed convoluto igne flagrantes. Lib. 37. c. 7.
