By Burton:
"This Realm, half-shadowed, China's empery
afar reflecting, whither ships are bound,
is the Japan, whose virgin silver mine
shall shine still sheenier with the Law Divine."
1727.—"Japon, with the neighbouring Islands under its Dominions, is about the magnitude of Great Britain."—A. Hamilton, ii. 306; [ed. 1744, ii. 305].
JARGON, JARCOON, ZIRCON, s. The name of a precious stone often mentioned by writers of the 16th century, but respecting the identity of which there seems to be a little obscurity. The English Encyclopaedia, and the Times Reviewer of Emanuel's book On Precious Stones (1866), identify it with the hyacinth or jacinth; but Lord Stanley of Alderley, in his translation of Barbosa (who mentions the stone several times under the form giagonza and jagonza), on the authority of a practical jeweller identifies it with corundum. This is probably an error. Jagonza looks like a corruption of jacinthus. And Haüy's Mineralogy identifies jargon and hyacinth under the common name of zircon. Dana's Mineralogy states that the term hyacinth is applied to these stones, consisting of a silicate of zirconia, "which present bright colours, considerable transparency, and smooth shining surfaces.... The variety from Ceylon, which is colourless, and has a smoky tinge, and is therefore sold for inferior diamonds, is sometimes called jargon" (Syst. of Mineral., 3rd ed., 1850, 379-380; [Encycl. Britt. 9th ed. xxiv. 789 seq.]).
The word probably comes into European languages through the Span. azarcon, a word of which there is a curious history in Dozy and Engelmann. Two Spanish words and their distinct Arabic originals have been confounded in the Span. Dict. of Cobarruvias (1611) and others following him. Sp. zarca is 'a woman with blue eyes,' and this comes from Ar. zarḳā, fem. of azraḳ, 'blue.' This has led the lexicographers above referred to astray, and azarcon has been by them defined as a 'blue earth, made of burnt lead.' But azarcon really applies to 'red-lead,' or vermilion, as does the Port. zarcão, azarcão, and its proper sense is as the Dict. of the Sp. Academy says (after repeating the inconsistent explanation and etymology of Cobarruvias), "an intense orange-colour, Lat. color aureus." This is from the Ar. zarḳūn, which in Ibn Baithar is explained as synonymous with salīḳūn, and asranj, "which the Greeks call sandix," i.e. cinnabar or vermilion (see Sontheimer's Ebn Beithar, i. 44, 530). And the word, as Dozy shows, occurs in Pliny under the form syricum (see quotations below). The eventual etymology is almost certainly Persian, either zargūn, 'gold colour,' as Marcel Devic suggests, or āzargūn (perhaps more properly āẓargūn, from āẓar, 'fire'), 'flame-colour,' as Dozy thinks.
A.D. c. 70.—"Hoc ergo adulteratur minium in officinis sociorum, et ubivis Syrico. Quonam modo Syricum fiat suo loco docebimus, sublini autem Syrico minium conpendi ratio demonstrat."—Plin. N. H. XXXIII. vii.
" "Inter facticios est et Syricum, quo minium sublini diximus. Fit autem Sinopide et sandyce mixtis."—Ibid. XXXV. vi.