Gems Notes and Extracts Augusto Castellani, Mrs. John Brogden 1871

214 GEMS.The substance composing stalactites is worked likealabaster, and made into vases, cups, and other littlearticles.XCIV.TOURMALINE.A GEM remarkable amongstall others on account ofits electric qualities.Tourmaline is often found amongst antique jewellery,but we do not know what name the ancientsgave tothis stone, of which no description remains relative toits physical properties. Equally ignorant are we as tothe etymology of its name, which, nevertheless, seemsto have come to us from India.In 1717 some German travellers found it at Cey'onand broughtit to Europe, calling it ascentrekker, becauseit especially attracted or repelled ashes.In 1758 an Italian, the Duke of Najo Caraffa, procuredtwo in Amsterdam, which he presented to thecelebrated Buffon, who was the first to give a scientificdescription of them.Then they received the name of electric sciorlo, fromthe German sciorl, derived from Shorlaw, a Saxonvillage, in whose environs it was abundantly found.But the term sciorlo is now only applied to the blackkind, the others being called touimaline.Tourmaline is found crystallized in pebbles ofdifferent forms. The crystals are rhomboidal, and