About Precious Stones and Babylon

The Spanish "Alexandro el Magno," first published in 1782 by Sanchez from a MS. copy, apparently of the fourteenth century, contains a curious description of Babylon--a city, says the poet, abundant beyond all abundance, rich in the gifts of ages, safe from disease and distress, perfumed by nutmegs and nard, where all faces are joyous, and the three holy rivers flow over costly stones, some of which dispense a beautiful light, and others give health and strength. There is the emerald, brighter than a mirror; the jasper, which preserves from poison; the garnet, which casts out demons and destroys serpents; magnets, which rule over iron; the diamond, which can only be affected by the blood of kids; the topaz, which gives its own colour to all it approaches; the galuca, which discovers thieves; the idropicus, which deprives the moon of her colour and makes its possessor invisible; the sagita, which calls down the clouds; the coral, which wards off the thunderbolt and preserves from violent death; the hyacinth, of the colour of day, that cures all diseases; the margarita, formed of dews; the peorus, whose colour cannot be described; the calatides, which makes bitter sweet; the solgoma (solisgemma), that creates the lightning, and the selenite, that waxes and wanes with the moon; the agate, that stops the course of rivers; the absinth, which, once heated, preserves its fires--in a word, every precious stone that possesses miraculous virtue, according to the learned assurances of Albertus Magnus, or the devout credulity of St. Isidore or Father Bartholomew Anglicus.