Morning journal and courier., 1892-06-06
PRECIOUS STONES.
Their Legends and Their Mysteries- Healing Properties.
 

From the Figaro
 The father of jewelry was Prometheus When he was cut loose by Hercules from the chains that fastened him to Mount Caucasus he made ring out of one of the links of his letters, and in the bezel of it he fixed portion of the rock. According to Pliny, that was the 6rst ring and the the tablets of Moses were of sapphire. In Hebrew the word sappir means the most beautiful. It symbolizes loyalty, justice, beauty and nobility. The eme- rald is mentioned by St. John in his Apo calypso. An emerald of inestimable value ornamented the bezel of the ring of Poly crates, king of Samos. That monarch, having been all his life favored by for tune, determined to put his luck to se- were test. He threw the ring into the sea. The next day he went fishing. The record of that days sport still remains unbroken. His majesty caught fine fish and iE the inside of the fish he found his ring. That happened in the year 230 of the founda- tion of Rome, and the ring. considered as talisman, was placed among the royal treasures of the Temple of Concord. Elm eralds from India, Persia and Peru are the most valuable. According to their tints and their lustre they are classed as Pro- sines, Neronianes and Domitisnes. Ac- cording to Suetonius, Nero used to look at the fighting gladiators in his emerald. The stone is the emblem of charity, hope, | joy and abundance. It had the reputation of curing epilepsy by application and of being an all-round pain killer.
 The diamond has always been regarded ! as the most precious stone It resists the | hardest bodies. The Pontiff Aaron wore | diamond of astounding virtues. It be- came obscure, almost black, when the He brews were in O state of mortal sin. If | the guilty deserved death it became red, but in the presence of innocence it came back to its original purity and brilliancy. Rues assures us that diamonds breed, and | that 8 certain princess of the house of Luxemburg had two which had a falcily | in the course of a reasonable time. The ! same interesting assertion is also made by Boethius. The diamond was reputed as a pressryer against epidemics and poisohs. | It calms anger and foments conjugal love. The ancients called it ''the stone of re, | concilia.ion" It symbolizes constancy, strength and innocence.
 The name of the precious stone inserted | in the ring of Gyges has not been handed down to us, but it is probable that it was
 the topas whose wonders Philostrates re-
 counts in the life of Apollonius. An at
 tribute of the sun and of fire, the an.
 cients called it the gold magnet, as it was
 credited with the power of attracting that
 metal, indicating its veins and discovering
 treasures. Heliodorus, in his stoIJ ot
 Theagenes and Caricles, says that the to-
 paz saves from fires all those who wear it
 and that Chsricle3 was pi-ce-ved by to
 paz from the fiery vengeance of Arssces
 queen of Ethiopia. This stone was one oi
 the first talismans that Theagenes pos
 sessed in Egypt. The topaz at presen
 symbolizes Christian virtues, faith, jus
 tice, temperance, gentleness, clemency.
 One of the rarest and most preciou
 stones is the carbuncle, which is some
 times confounded with the ruby, iron
 which it differs by the intensity of it
 fires, produced by an internal lustre o
 gold, while under the purple of the rub,
 there only appear dottings of azure or lac
 quer. Ethiopia produces the most pre-
 cious ancient carbuucles. The Chaldean regarded this stone as powerful talisman Legend makes the eyes of dragons out O , carbuncles. Garcias ab Horto, physicial of one of the viceroys of India, speaks O | carbuncles which he saw in the palace O that prince which were extraordinar. in their brilliancy that they seemed ''hk , red hot coals in the midst of darkness. Louis Vertoman reports that the king O Pegu wore an enormous one, which & night appeared to be lighted up with sun