Garnet Gemstones - A Collection of Historical Articles on the Origins, Structure and Properties of Garnet
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Garnet Gemstones - A Collection of Historical Articles on the Origins, Structure and Properties of Garnet - Read Books Ltd.
Whitlock
ALABANDICUS: Almandine: Precious Garnet.
GARNET
Lessing conjectures to be an Italian corruption of Garamanticus,
an inferior kind of the Carbunculus according to Pliny’s classification; but a much less farfetched derivation presents itself, viz., that the common gem has borrowed its present name (Anglicised from Grénat; Granato) from the Granaticus specified by Marbodus as early as the 11th century. This was the Red Hyacinthus of the Romans, so called from the resemblance of its colour to the crimson juice of the pomegranate. For stones of the same colour were promiscuously classed under one head by the ignorance of the Middle Ages (unacquainted with even the ancient test of comparative hardness), whence has arisen that strange interchange of names between ancient and modern precious stones so perplexing to every mineralogist. But in the present instance the confusion is the more excusable, seeing that every variety of the Red Hyacinthus (Ruby) has an exact counterpart in colour amongst the various kinds of Garnets, and in many cases they can only be distinguished from each other through hardness, specific gravity, original crystallisation, and other properties not obvious to the eye, till lately the sole criterion. The Father of Mineralogy, Theophrastus, evidently is describing several very different stones under the head of ῎Aνθραξ (18); for although his first kind, brought from Carthage and Massilia, blood-red, but like a live coal when held against the sun, and of extreme value, so that a very small one sold for 40 gold staters (40 guineas),
seems to have been the true Ruby, yet that found near Miletus in polygonal pieces
must have been our Garnet, the primary form of which is the rhombic dodecahedron. Similarly those named by him as found in various parts of Greece, and as being of little value (33), and which he distinguishes from the precious ῎Aνθραξ by giving them the lowering name ῎Aνθράκιον, must have been the Common Garnet. These were, that found at Orchomenus, darker than the Chian sort, and out of which mirrors were made; the Trœzenian, red clouded with white; and the Corinthian, still fainter in colour. The plane surface of a dark Garnet will reflect objects with considerable distinctness; the mirrors
here mentioned were, it is not impossible, table
Garnets of this kind:* (the only gems employed in the Merovingian jewels of the 7th and 8th centuries are in fact Garnet tables neatly inlaid, so as to form patterns in the fibulæ of copper gilt): Theophrastus thereupon remarks that all the kinds found in Greece were common enough and of trifling value, but that the better sort were rare, and brought only from few places—Carthage, Massilia, Egypt, and Syene. Pliny divides his Carbunculi into male and female, the former of a brilliant, the latter of a duller lustre. In the males of the Carthaginian kind, as it were a blazing star shone within them, whereas the females diffused their entire lustre externally. These Carthaginian stones were smaller than those coming from India. It may be deduced from these characters that the male Carbunculi were our Rubies, the females our Garnets.
The precious varieties, according to Pliny, were the Indian, the Garamantic or Carthaginian, the Ethiopic, and the Alabandine. The last were so called because, though found in the Orthorian rocks, they were worked up (perficiuntur) at Alabanda. This was the sort called by Theophrastus the Milesian, both places being in the same province, Caria. The Almandines of the moderns are the finest species of Garnet, of a beautiful crimson tinged with violet, and are brought from Siriam in Pegu, hence they are vulgularly called Syrian Garnets. These were the Amethystizontes of Pliny, then, as now, considered the best of the whole species, though it is probable he, or at least his Greek authorities, included the Balais under the same designation. He notices how some amongst the males possessed a more liquid, others a darker fire; how some were lighted up with a colour not their own, and shone more than others in the sunlight. The description he quotes from Archelaus of the Carthaginian sort exactly applies to our best Indian Garnet, that it was of a darkish aspect, but kindled up more brightly than the others when held and turned about in the light of the fire or sun. In the shade within doors the colour was purple; in the open air flamy; the wax sealed with such a gem would melt even though in the cool.
These descriptions of the several varieties of the ancient Carbunculus will be rendered more intelligible by a brief account of the various Garnets known to the modern lapidary. First in value comes a rarer sort, the Almandine, already described. It is a splendid stone, of great lustre, and, when of the first quality, can with difficulty be distinguished from the purple Spinel, which indeed usually passes under the same name in its antique specimens. Fine Roman intagli frequently, and sometimes imperial portraits, occur in this admirable material.* Closely approximating to the