Reckoned since ancient times to be one of the most powerful of stones. Symbolic of great power and sometimes of great wealth. It is also a protection against epilepsy. It was said that the sight of an emerald struck such terror into the viper and cobra that their eyes leaped out of their head. It preserves a man from accident, and stimulates mental powers.
Emeralds are symbolic of fidelity, unchanging love and can help the wearer to forecast events.
A hyachinthine-reddish variety of opal from Mexico. Opals are reckoned to be an evil stone, possessing the evil eye. But they are also said to be capable of relieving pain from eye diseases and of increasing the powers of the eyes and of the mind. Powdered it is administered for sleeplessness, fever, gallstones and melancholy. As late as the 19th Century it was still being used in Northern Greece to ward off calamities in general and to prevent miscarriage and abortion.