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fainter tinge of blue which was the one used for engraving. Last
came a greasy yellowish green, but little valued. The yellow beryl
of to-day seems not to have been known.
Beryl was then highly prized for rings and ear-drops, and was
the only one among the precious stones facetted by the Roman
jewelers, who cut it into a sexagonal pyramid. In India it was worn
in the form of long, cylindrical beads, though the most perfect in
color were not bored, each end being secured by a gold boss. Then,
as now, the backs were often painted, to deepen the tint, and set solid.
The Hindoos were admirers of both emerald and beryl and set them
much the same way.
The intagli were sea-subjects in which gods, waves, fishes,
dolphins, and the like appeared. Probably the grandest intaglio extant
of the Roman period is the bust of Julia Titi, on an aquamarine
2y2 by 2*4 inches, signed by Evodus. For nearly 1,000 years it
formed the knosp of a golden reliquary presented by Charlemagne to
the Abbey of St. Denis, in which it was set with convex back upper-
most, being regarded as an invaluable stone.
The beryl was a favorite for engraving with artists of the
Renaissance. These comparatively modern works are on the green
sort, the sky-blue being much more rare. The term aquamarine seems
not to have been bestowed. Pliny handicapped them with long
names meaning sapphire-blue and air-blue, though he classed them
as a variety of beryl. Bluish ones have been called aquamarine, green
and yellow beryl, within the last forty years.
"It is the vast supply poured in from Saxony, Siberia and
America," writes King, in 1865, "that has sunk the value of this
beautiful stone so low in modern times."
Morganite, the rose red variety of beryl, discovered in California
in 1911, and found later in Madagascar, was named in honor of the
late John Pierpont Morgan, who, through the gift of his rare collec-
tion of minerals and precious stones, a part of the Paris Exposition
of 1900, to the American Museum of Natural History, did so much
to educate the world concerning them.
The yellow is the least valued, yet it is sometimes, with its high
lustre, a dream of beauty. In the American Museum of Natural
History is a truly splendid golden beryl from Connecticut. One
exactly like it was found at Tiffany's at a trifling price for so en-
chanting a gem.
Beryl, while not free from defects, is very clear. The first idea
that led to modern eye-glasses was caught by looking through a
double convex beryl as long ago as the fifteenth century. Beryllus is
the Latin term for a magnifying glass whence the German "brille,"
a pair of spectacles. The ancients attributed to the gem itself the
quality that might have come through its shape, for the beryl was
long supposed to endow its possessor with second sight.
You remember how in Rosetti's beautiful poem "Rose Mary,"
the beryl plays so important a part is, indeed, the chief protagonist
in the grave situation of the unfortunate young woman.
Says
the troubled mother :
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