In our own land beautiful specimens can be seen in the Morgan collection at the American Museum of Natural History and in the Higinbotham Hall in the Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, Illinois.
Pliny quotes from Juba the tradition that the topaz (chrysolite) derived its name from the Island of Topazos, in the Red Sea, the first specimen having been brought thence by the procurator Philemon, to Berenice, mother of Ptolemy II, Philadelphus. This monarch is said to have had a statue of his wife Arsinoë made from the stone.[67] If there be any foundation for this latter statement, the precious gift sent by Philemon must have been a mass of fluorspar, or some similar material. More than three hundred years after Pliny’s time, Epiphanius, evidently repeating another version of this tradition, states that the “topaz” was set in the diadem of the “Theban queen.”
Chrysolite (olivine, peridot), to exert its full power, required to be set in gold; worn in this way it dispelled the vague terrors of the night. If, however, it were to be used as a protection from the wiles of evil spirits, the stone had to be pierced and strung on the hair of an ass and then attached to the left arm.[68] The belief in the virtue of the chrysolite to dissolve enchantments and to put evil spirits to flight was probably due to the association of the stone with the sun, before whose life-giving rays darkness and all the powers of darkness were driven away.
Chrysoprase
Wonderful things are told of the virtue of the chrysoprase, for Volmar states that, if a thief sentenced to be hanged or beheaded should place this stone in his mouth, he would immediately escape from his executioners.[69] Although we are not informed in what way this fortunate result was attained, it seems likely that the stone was believed to make the thief invisible, and thus possessed a virtue often attributed to the opal.
A strange story regarding a magic stone reputed to have been worn by Alexander the Great is related by Albertus Magnus. According to this recital, Alexander, in his battles, wore a “prase” in his girdle. On his return from his Indian campaign, wishing one day to bathe in the Euphrates, he laid aside his girdle, and a serpent bit off the stone and then dropped it into the river.[70] Even Albertus, who is far from critical, admits that the story seems like a fable, and it probably belongs to a comparatively late period. As the term “prase” is used very loosely by early writers, this “victory stone” may have been an emerald or possibly jade.
Coral
The appreciation of coral as an ornament, or for amulets, seems to presuppose a certain development of civilization, for savage tribes greatly prefer glass ornaments. Many attempts have been made to introduce coral beads instead of glass beads among such tribes, but with no success, as the cheaper, but brighter, glass always commands a higher price.[71]
To still tempests and traverse broad rivers in safety was the privilege of one who bore either red or white coral with him. That this also stanched the flow of blood from a wound, cured madness, and gave wisdom, was said to have been experimentally proved.[72]