1 Bîjâdah is classified by Muhammad B. Mansûr (A.D. 1470) and by Ibn al Mubârak (A.D. 1520) under "stones resembling ruby"; the Tansûk nâmah describes it in a separate chapter. From the description it can be identified with the almandine garnet, and the method of cutting this stone en cabochon, with hollow back in order to display its colour better is specially mentioned. The Tansûk nâmah only incidentally refers to the electric property of the bîjâdah in the chapter on loadstone, but the other two treatises specially refer to it in their description of the stone. The one has: "Bîjâdah if rubbed until warm, attracts straws and other light bodies just as amber does"; the other: "Bîjâdah, if rubbed on the hair of the head, or on the beard, attracts straws." Surûri, the lexicographer, who compiled a dictionary in 1599, considers the bîjâdah "a red ruby which possesses the property of attraction." Other dictionaries do not mention the attractive property, but some authors confound the stone with amber, calling it Kâbrubâ, the straw-robber. The bîjâdah is not rubellite (red tourmaline) for it is described in the lapidaries as common, whereas rubellite (from Ceylon) has always been rare, and was unknown in Persia in the thirteenth century.
[111] Page 47, line 21. Page 47, line 25. Succinum seu succum.—Dioscorides regarded amber as the inspissated juice of the poplar tree. From the Frankfurt edition of 1543 (De Medicinali materia, etc.) edited by Ruellius, we have, liber i., p. 53:
Populus. Cap. XCIII.
"... Lachrymam populorum commemorant quæ in Padum amnem defluat, durari, ac coire in succinum, quod electrum vocant, alii chrysophorum. id attritu jucundum odorem spirat, et aurum colore imitatur. tritum potumque stomachi ventrisque fluxiones sistit."
To this Ruellius adds the commentary:
"Succinum seu succina gutta à succo dicta, Græcis ἤλεκτρομ [sic], esse
lachryma populi albæ, vel etiam nigræ quibusdam videtur, ab ejusdem arboris resina. Dioscoridi et Galeno dicta differens et πτερυγοφόρος, id est paleas trahens, quoque vocatur, quantum ei quoque Galenus tribuit li. 37, ca. 9. Succinum scribit à quibusdam pinei generis arboribus, ut gummi à cerasis excidere autumno, et largum mitti ex Germania septentrionali, et insulis maris Germanici. quod hodie nobis est compertissimum: ad hæc liquata igni valentiore, quia à frigido intensiore concrevit. pineam aperte olet, calidum primo gradu, siccum secundo, stomachum roborat, vomitum, nauseam arcet. cordis palpitationi prodest. pravorem humorum generationem prohibet.
"Germani weiss und gelbaugstein et brenstein.
"Galli ambra vocant: vulgo in corollis precariis frequens."
In the scholia of Johann Lonicer in his edition of Dioscorides, we find, lib. i., cap. xcviii., De nigra Populo: