Caxton translated the book under the title of A Boke of the hoole Lyf of Jason, at the command of the duchess of Burgundy. A Flemish translation appeared at Haarlem in 1495. The Benedictine Bernard de Montfaucon (1655-1741) refers to a MS. by Guido delle Colonne, Historia Medeae et Jasonis (unpublished).
The Histoire de la Thoison d’Or (Paris, 1516) by Guillaume Fillastre (1400-1473), written about 1440-1450, is an historical compilation dealing with the exploits of the très chrétiennes maisons of France, Burgundy and Flanders.
JASON OF CYRENE, a Hellenistic Jew, who lived about 100 B.C. and wrote a history of the times of the Maccabees down to the victory over Nicanor (175-161 B.C.). This work is said to have been in five books and formed the basis of the present 2 Macc. (see ch. ii. 19-32).
JASPER, an opaque compact variety of quartz, variously coloured and often containing argillaceous matter. The colours are usually red, brown, yellow or green, and are due to admixture with compounds of iron, either oxides or silicates. Although the term jasper is now restricted to opaque quartz it is certain that the ancient jaspis or ἰάσπις was a stone of considerable translucency. The jasper of antiquity was in many cases distinctly green, for it is often compared with the emerald and other green objects. Jasper is referred to in the Niebelungenlied as being clear and green. Probably the jasper of the ancients included stones which would now be classed as chalcedony, and the emerald-like jasper may have been akin to our chrysoprase. The Hebrew word yashefeh may have designated a green jasper (cf. Assyrian yashpu). Professor Flinders Petrie has suggested that the odem, the first stone on the High Priest’s breastplate, translated “sard,” was a red jasper, whilst tarshish, the tenth stone, may have been a yellow jasper (Hastings’s Dict. Bible, 1902).
Many varieties of jasper are recognized. Riband jasper is a form in which the colours are disposed in bands, as in the well-known ornamental stone from Siberia, which shows a regular alternation of dark red and green stripes. Egyptian jasper is a brown jasper, occurring as nodules in the Lybian desert and in the Nile valley, and characterized by a zonal arrangement of light and dark shades of colour. Agate-jasper is a variety intermediate between true jasper and chalcedony. Basanite, lydite, or Lydian stone, is a velvet-black flinty jasper, used as a touchstone for testing the purity of precious metals by their streak. Porcelain jasper is a clay indurated by natural calcination.
(F. W. R.*)
JASSY (Iaṣiĭ), also written Jasii, Jaschi and Yassy, the capital of the department of Jassy, Rumania; situated on the left bank of the river Bahlui, an affluent of the Jijia, about 10 m. W. of the Pruth and the Russian frontier. Pop. (1900), 78,067. Jassy communicates by rail with Galatz on the Danube, Kishinev in Bessarabia, and Czernowitz in Bukowina. The surrounding country is one of uplands and woods, among which rise the monasteries of Cetaṭuia, Frumoasa, and Galata with its mineral springs, the water-cure establishment of Rapide and the great seminary of Socola. Jassy itself stands pleasantly amid vineyards and gardens, partly on two hills, partly in the hollow between. Its primitive houses of timber and plaster were mostly swept away after 1860, when brick or stone came into general use, and good streets were cut among the network of narrow, insanitary lanes. Jassy is the seat of the metropolitan of Moldavia, and of a Roman Catholic archbishop. Synagogues and churches abound. The two oldest churches date from the reign of Stephen the Great (1458-1504); perhaps the finest, however, are the 17th-century metropolitan, St Spiridion and Trei Erarchi, the last a curious example of Byzantine art, erected in 1639 or 1640 by Basil the Wolf, and adorned with countless gilded carvings on its outer walls and twin towers. The St Spiridion Foundation (due to the liberality of Prince Gregory Ghika in 1727, and available for the sick of all countries and creeds) has an annual income of over £80,000, and maintains hospitals and churches in several towns of Moldavia, besides the baths at Slanic in Walachia. The main hospital in Jassy is a large building, and possesses a maternity institution, a midwifery school, a chemical institute, an inoculating establishment, &c. A society of physicians and naturalists has existed in Jassy since the early part of the 19th century, and a number of periodicals are published. Besides the university, founded by Prince Cuza in 1864, with faculties of literature, philosophy, law, science and medicine, there are a military academy and schools of art, music and commerce; a museum, a fine hall and a theatre; the state library, where the chief records of Rumanian history are preserved; an appeal court, a chamber of commerce and several banks. The city is the headquarters of the 4th army corps. It has an active trade in petroleum, salt, metals, timber, cereals, fruit, wine, spirits, preserved meat, textiles, clothing, leather, cardboard and cigarette paper.