"R. They are beautiful; a sort of sour-sweet, not very acid.
"O. They are called in Canarin and Decan camariz, and in Malay balimba ... they make with sugar a very pleasant conserve of these.... Antonia! bring hither a preserved carambola."—Garcia, ff. 46v, 47.
1598.—"There is another fruite called Carambolas, which hath 8 (5 really) corners, as bigge as a smal aple, sower in eating, like vnripe plums, and most vsed to make Conserues. (Note by Paludanus). The fruite which the Malabars and Portingales call Carambolas, is in Decan called Camarix, in Canar, Camarix and Carabeli; in Malaio, Bolumba, and by the Persians Chamaroch."—Linschoten, 96; [Hak. Soc. ii. 33].
1672.—"The Carambola ... as large as a pear, all sculptured (as it were) and divided into ribs, the ridges of which are not round but sharp, resembling the heads of those iron maces that were anciently in use."—P. Vincenzo Maria, 352.
1878.—"... the oxalic Kamrak."—In my Indian Garden, 50.
[1900.—"... that most curious of fruits, the carambola, called by the Chinese the yong-t'o, or foreign peach, though why this name should have been selected is a mystery, for when cut through, it looks like a star with five rays. By Europeans it is also known as the Cape gooseberry."—Ball, Things Chinese, 3rd ed. p. 253.]
CARAT, s. Arab ḳirrāt, which is taken from the Gr. κεράτιον, a bean of the κερατεία or carob tree (Ceratonia siliqua, L.). This bean, like the Indian rati (see [RUTTEE]) was used as a weight, and thence also it gave name to a coin of account, if not actual. To discuss the carat fully would be a task of extreme complexity, and would occupy several pages.
Under the name of siliqua it was the 24th part of the golden solidus of Constantine, which was again = 1⁄6 of an ounce. Hence this carat was = 1⁄144 of an ounce. In the passage from St. Isidore quoted below, the cerates is distinct from the siliqua, and = 1½ siliquae. This we cannot explain, but the siliqua Graeca was the κεράτιον; and the siliqua as 1⁄24 of a solidus is the parent of the carat in all its uses. [See Prof. Gardner, in Smith, Dict. Ant. 3rd ed. ii. 675.] Thus we find the carat at Constantinople in the 14th century = 1⁄24 of the hyperpera or Greek bezant, which was a debased representative of the solidus; and at Alexandria 1⁄24 of the Arabic dīnār, which was a purer representative of the solidus. And so, as the Roman uncia signified 1⁄12 of any unit (compare ounce, inch), so to a certain extent carat came to signify 1⁄24. Dictionaries give Arab. ḳirrāṭ as "1⁄24 of an ounce." Of this we do not know the evidence. The English Cyclopaedia (s.v.) again states that "the carat was originally the 24th part of the marc, or half-pound, among the French, from whom the word came." This sentence perhaps contains more than one error; but still both of these allegations exhibit the carat as 1⁄24th part. Among our goldsmiths the term is still used to measure the proportionate quality of gold; pure gold being put at 24 carats, gold with 1⁄12 alloy at 22 carats, with ¼ alloy at 18 carats, &c. And the word seems also (like [Anna], q.v.) sometimes to have been used to express a proportionate scale in other matters, as is illustrated by a curious passage in Marco Polo, quoted below.
The carat is also used as a weight for diamonds. As 1⁄144 of an ounce troy this ought to make it 3⅓ grains. But these carats really run 151½ to the ounce troy, so that the diamond carat is 31⁄6 grs. nearly. This we presume was adopted direct from some foreign system in which the carat was 1⁄144 of the local ounce. [See Ball, Tavernier, ii. 447.]
c. A.D. 636.—"Siliqua vigesima quarta pars solidi est, ab arboris semine vocabulum tenens. Cerates oboli pars media est siliquã habens unam semis. Hanc latinitas semiobulũ vocat; Cerates autem Graece, Latine siliqua cornuũ interpretatur. Obulus siliquis tribus appenditur, habens cerates duos, calcos quatuor."—Isidori Hispalensis Opera (ed. Paris, 1601), p. 224.