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XV. In Ægypt, about Thebes, there is alſo found the Alabaſter, which is dug in large Maſſes; and the Chernites, which reſembles Ivory, and in which, it is ſaid, Darius was buried; as alſo the Porus, which in Colour and Hardneſs emulates the Parian Marble, though ſingular in its remarkable Lightneſs: in this it reſembles the Tophus: and on Account of this the Ægyptians generally uſed it in the Partitions of their more elegant Edifices.
and by others confounded with one another, are different Subſtances; the Alabaſtrum is properly the ſoft Stone, of a gypſeous Subſtance, burning eaſily into a Kind of Plaiſter; and the Alabaſtrites the hard, bearing a good Poliſh, and approaching to the Texture, of Marble. All the ;ater Authors confirm what Theophraſtus here mentions, of its being found about Thebes. The Quarries of it there are not yet exhauſted, and probably will not be in many Ages.
This Stone was by the Greeks called alſo ſometimes Onyx, and by the Latins, Marmor Onychites, from its Uſe in making Boxes for preſerving precious Ointments, which Boxes were commonly called Onyxes and Alabaſters. Thus Dioſcorides ἀλαζαςρίτες; ὁ καλέμενος ὄνυξ. And hence have been a thouſand Miſtakes in the later Authors of leſs reading; who have miſunderſtood Pliny, and confounded the Onyx Marble, as the Alabaſter was frequently called, with the precious Stone of that Name. This Author, however, cannot be accuſed of having given any Occaſion to the Confuſion: for though the Onyx was, in his Time, ſometimes called alſo Alabaſter, as well as the Alabaſter Onyx, from their common Uſe in theſe Boxes, he here clearly explains himſelf as to which Kind he is treating of, by obſerving, that it is that which is dug in large Maſſes; by way of Diſtinc-
