Historical Writings of Precious Gem Stones

Herodotus, born 484 years before Christ, five centuries after Homer, has left us a great number of statements, and some of them very valuable, concerning mineral substances known in his time: but he does not make mention of any new substance appertaining to the class of precious stones.

In the poems of Orpheus, attributed also to Onomacritus, and, in any case, as old as 450 B.C., there is evidence that the Greeks already attributed supernatural qualities to precious stones.

In the following century Plato, whose vast intelligence embraced so many transcendental ideas, was led to examine the origin of precious stones. He believed that they were veritable living beings, produced by a sort of fermentation determined by the action of a vivifying spirit descending from the stars. He described the diamond, which he distinguished from other precious stones as being a kind of kernel formed in gold; and supposed that it was the noblest and purest part of the metal that had condensed into a transparent mass.

Aristotle, born just a century after Herodotus, touches upon minerals only incidentally, at the end of his four books on Meteors, and sheds upon them no new light.

Theophrastus, a pupil of Aristotle, wrote a treatise upon precious stones, only a part of which has reached us. Notwithstanding the defects of this work, in part attributable to the times and in part to the author, we are none the less indebted to Theophrastus for the description of a number of important mineral substances unknown before his time.

We find also in this writer an idea which, taken by itself, is very singular: he divides the stones into two categories-male and female. When the reader remembers what has been said above, however, he will understand that there is nothing in this idea that is not in harmony with the general ideas of the ancients.

Dioscorides, whose valuable writings appeared in the first century of our era, furnishes, in a mineralogic point of view, no information of importance. But in another aspect. The works are exceedingly interesting, seeing that we find in them the full development of the idea that precious stones possess a multitude of secret virtues--an idea admitted without dispute by all his successors, to a time very closely approaching our own, and which we find still entertained by the inhabitants of the mountainous regions of Spain and Arabia.

A few years after Dioscorides a work appeared, beyond all comparison in advance of its predecessors, the Natural History of Pliny. In this work, one of the most precious that we have inherited from antiquity, we find a chapter exclusively devoted to precious stones: it is a chapter to which we shall find occasion to refer in the following pages.

Leaving Pliny we must come down to the Arabs, ten centuries afterwards, before we find any new information upon minerals and precious stones. This we meet with first in the writings of Gerbert and Avicenna.

Avicenna acquired in his lifetime a wide reputation; and although it was due as much to his tact as to his science, it remained unrivalled for many centuries.

Among his writings there is a treatise upon stones, which comprehends results of great importance. The chapter devoted to the origin of mountains deserves particular notice. It is in this chapter that the learned Arab, always maintaining the hypothetical method of argument, expounds with an extraordinary grandeur and clearness of insight the theory of upheavals, that of Neptunism and of Plutonism, and the mode of formation of alluvial deposits: thus anticipating by eight centuries the results of modern science.

Two hundred years after Avicenna there appeared one of the grandest figures of the middle ages--Albertus Magnus, or Albert the Great.

Among the great works that we owe to this gifted man, or at least to his impulse and direction, is a treatise upon minerals, of which the illustrious chemist M. Dumaa has said, "That which characterizes the treatise De Rebus Metallicis is the learned, precise, and often elegant exposition of the opinions of the ancients and of the Arabs; it is the methodical discussion of these which discloses at once the practised writer and the attentive observer."

In this treatise Albertus Magnus discusses precious stones; and while devoting a considerable space to the extraordinary properties of these beautiful productions, he carefully distinguishes a certain number of them, and indicates methods of obtaining several sorts of false gems.

Another illustrious genius of the middle ages--the friend and disciple of Albertus Magnus--St. Thomas Aquinas, whose voluminous works even surpass in extent those of his master, has written a treatise upon the Nature of Minerals, in which some very curious passages occur, especially on the fabrication of artificial stones.

In glancing over the works of Arnault de Villeneuve, of Raymond Lully, of Paul of Canotanto, of Isaac the Hollander, &c., we find a certain amount of space devoted to precious stones; but no new idea worthy of note. Thus the end of the fifteenth century is reached, and we emerge from the medieval age.

Upon the threshold of the Renaissance a singular character appears, Jerome Cardan (born in 1501), who furnishes us with some valuable suggestions. Several works of Cardan, published after his death, contain some rather absurd passages; but in his treatise De Subtilitate, the careful student finds many ideas which prove that the author possessed great intelligence, and beneath an air of bonhommie a veritable sagacity.

Cardan designates under the generic name of gems all the brilliant stones, and reserves the name of precious stones for those which are not only brilliant, but rare, and of small dimensions. These precious stones he divides into three classes: 1st, those which are brilliant and transparent, as the diamond; 2d, those which are opaque, like the onyx; 3d, those which are formed by the conjunction of the two other kinds, as the jasper.

This is very nearly the same classification as that employed by Caire, three centuries after Cardan.

According to Cardan, precious stones are engendered ("in the same manner as the infant from the maternal blood") by juices that distil from precious minerals in the cavities of the rocks: the diamond, the emerald, and the opal from gold; the sapphire from silver; and the carbuncle, the amethyst, and the garnet from iron.

In enumerating the flaws or imperfections which may be presented by precious stones, he makes a remarkable reflection, and one which has been considered an ingenious plea for excusing certain well-known imperfections of his own.

"In precious stones," he says, "imperfections are in reality less common than in animals and vegetables; but they are more conspicuous in jewels, simply because thereafter is more brilliant and more rare. For the same reason, great men appear to have more vices than common mortals; but this is a delusion and an error. The lustre of their fame and the splendour of their names render their faults only the more apparent; while the ignorant vulgar, under favour of their obscurity, escape having their vices noticed."

It was admitted without question, in the time of Cardan, that precious stones were living beings.

"And not only do precious stones live, but they suffer illness, old age, and death."

He then speaks of the different virtues possessed by precious stones. The hyacinth preserves from thunder-storms and from pestilence, and induces sleep. This last quality was attributed to it by Albertus Magnus. Without precisely rejecting this notion, Cardan confesses that he carries ordinarily a very large hyacinth, and that it has never appeared to contribute anything towards making him sleep; but he adds immediately, and with perfect naivete, that his hyacinth has not the true colour, and may possibly be far from good. It was also believed that the hyacinth increased riches, augmented power, fortified the heart, brought joy to the soul, &c.

He describes the turquoise, which, mounted in a ring, secures the horseman from all injury if he falls from his horse; and adds, "I have a beautiful turquoise which was given me for a keepsake, but it has never occurred to me to test its virtues, as I do not care, for sake of the experiment, to fall from my horse."

It is not necessary to multiply examples to give an idea of the remarkable properties ascribed to gems in antiquity, and in the middle ages. In discussing this subject M. Babinet makes the following striking remarks:--

"For all maladies of a nervous or moral nature, where imagination might exert a great influence, precious stones were certainly a sovereign remedy.

In saying to such an invalid that an emerald placed under his pillow would drive away melancholy, dispel nightmare, calm the palpitations of the heart, induce agreeable thoughts, bring success to enterprises, and dissipate the anxieties of the soul, a cure was certain to be effected simply by the faith which the invalid had in the efficacy of the remedy. The hope of cure in such affections is the cure itself; and in all the numerous cases where the mind has had an influence upon the bodily system, the imaginary cause must produce a very real effect. Finally, that eternal deception of the human spirit, which registers all the cures, but does not take into account the cases where the curative means have failed of their end, contributed to maintain the belief in the occult virtues of precious stones. It is not half a century ago since sufferers would borrow from rich families gems mounted in rings, to apply to afflicted parts. When the trinket was introduced into the mouth as a cure for toothache, sore throat, or ear-ache, the precaution was taken to secure it with a strong thread, lest it should be swallowed by the patient.