GRANATUS.
59 *
3 . Granatus.
The Garnet.
yf wry beautiful Gem , whose colour is red , with ait admixture of bluesi,
"This is a Gem very subject to faults and blemishes, and of very different degrees ofcolour in its different specimens, but when pure and well coloured is little inferior inappearance to the oriental Ruby; it is of a middle degree of hardness between theSapphire and common Crystal, and is found of various sizes, from that of a largepins head to an inch in diameter, but such large ones are very rare; the larger that areusually found not exceeding a fifth of an inch in diameter; it is almost always found ofan oblong or irregularly rounded and Pebble like figure, and never in angular columns j itslurfaces are not so smooth or polite as those of the Ruby, and its colour is ever a strongred, with a plain admixture of blueish; its degree of colour is very different in the dif-ferent specimens, and it always wants much of the brightness of the Ruby, as well inits polish’d as in its native rough state;
These are the determinate characters by which the Garnet is to be known from allthe other red Gems; but among our lapidaries and jewellers genuine Garnets accordingto their different degrees of colour, are known by several different names.
1. The Garnet, simply so called, this is the finest and most valuable kind; it is of avery deep blood red with a faint admixture of blue.
2. The Rock~Ruby. This is the name they very improperly give to the Garnet,when it is of a very strong but not deep red, and has a fairer cast of the blue ; this isa very beautiful Gem.
3. The Sorane, or as they speak it, the Serain Garnet. This is the name by whichthey call those Garnets, which are of a yet brighter red, approaching to the colour ofnative Cinnabar, with a faint blue tinge.
4. The Almandine. This is the name given to the Garnet, when of the fame ad-mixture of tinge with the Rock Ruby, but only a little paler;
These are the names by which the more expert among the jewellers distinguish thevarious appearances of the Garnet, and which, tho’ to the Naturalists they are but va-rieties, are yet to them as distinct species of Gems, since they are of their several dif-ferent values ; but among the less judicious of these artificers, the names are strangelyconfounded with one another, and even with other Stones j the bluer Amethysts beingby some of them call’d Rock Rubies, and the deeper Hyacinths, Sorane Garnets.
The Antients, tho’ they have not distinguish’d this Gem by any peculiar name, yet seemto have been well acquainted with it, mentioning its several appearances as to its dif-ferent degrees of colour as so many species of their Carbuncle; the name by which theycalled all the red Gems, and their Træzenius, Sandaster and Sandarefus seem to havebeen only varieties of it.
Some Authors of very distinguishing judgments have taken the deeper Garnet to bethe very species of Gem known by the name Carbuncle among the Antients; and I waslong of the fame opinion, till meeting with the true Carbuncle, it appeared very plainly*on the comparison of their appearance on receiving the sun’s beams, that the Garnetwhose colour goes off into a blue, could never give so true a fire colour in the fun, asthe true Carbuncle, whole deep red went off into a fine scarlet.
Our jewellers very properly distinguish their Garnets into the oriental and occidentalkinds, as they are found in Europe as well as the East-Indies 5 the oriental are princi-pally brought from Calicut, Cananor and Cambay; the European ones are commonm Italy, Hungary and Bohemia ; the oriental ones are found loose among the earthof mountains, or sands of rivers; but the European are most frequently found im-mers’d in vast quantities in a brownish black soft Stone, interspers’d with spangles ofa sebaceous Talc.
4. Hyacinthus.
The Hyacinths
A Gem whose colour is red , with an admixture of yellow.
This is a very different Gem from that known by the Antients under the name ofthe Hyacinth, which was a variety of the Amethyst, with a large admixture of a deep
blue;