Indestructibility of the Diamond 21 



stones in the breastplate of the Jewish High Priest, and focuses it on 

 the hyacinth, which makes for too narrow a specialization to be credit- 

 able to the original. Certainly Epiphanius is not the author of the 

 story, but merely its propagandist; it was folk-lore of his time which he 

 imbibed and employed for his specific purpose. This point of view is 

 upheld by our Chinese text, which records the story as a tradition com- 

 ing from the Hellenistic Orient, and which clearly indicates also its 

 object. The precious stones of anterior Asia had always wrought an 

 unbounded fascination on the minds of the Chinese, and the scope of 

 this tradition is to account for the enormous wealth in jewels possessed 

 by the country Fu-lin. Here we have a bit of humorous wit, as offered 

 by the inhabitants of Fu-lin in explanation of numerous queries ad- 

 dressed to them by foreign traders : it was a story freely circulating in 

 Fu-lin, not centring around the hyacinth, but relating to precious stones 

 in the widest sense. Such appears to have been the original story, and 

 thus it is preserved to us by the Chinese. That Pseudo-Aristotle and 

 his successors (except TifashI with his relapse into the hyacinth) chose 

 the diamond, is easily intelligible, the diamond being always deemed 

 the foremost and most valuable of all precious stones. 1 



Indestructibility of the Diamond. — The Taoist adept Ko 

 Hung (fourth century a.d.) has the following notice on the diamond: 

 "The kingdom of Fu-nan (Cambodja) produces diamonds (kin kang 

 ^J*)']) which are capable of cutting jade. In their appearance they 

 resemble fluor-spar. 2 They grow on stones like stalactites, 3 on the bot- 

 tom of the sea to the depth of a thousand feet. Men dive in search for 

 the stones, and ascend at the close of a day. The diamond when struck 

 by an iron hammer is not damaged; the latter, on the contrary, will be 



1 J. H. Krause, Pyrgoteles, p. 29. The diamond is forestalled in the text of 

 Epiphanius by the reference to the incombustible property of the stones. 



* Ts'e shi ying &?».&•, thus identified by D. Hanbury, Notes on Chinese Materia 

 Medica {Pharmaceutical Journal, 1861, p. no), or Science Papers, p. 218. E. Biot 

 identified it with rock-crystal and smoky quartz (Pauthier and Bazin, Chine mod- 

 erne, Vol. II, p. 556). 



8 Chung ju shi !tfc*JS, identified by D. Hanbury (/. c), with carbonate 

 of lime in stalactitic masses, obtained from caves. The Chinese name, however, 

 does not signify, as stated by Hanbury, "hanging- (like a bell) milk-stone," but the 

 term chung ju refers to the mammillary protuberances or knobs on the ancient Chinese 

 bells (see Hirth, Boas Anniversary Volume, pp. 251, 257). Giles (No. 5691) has 

 the name in the form shi chung ju, "stone-bell teats, — stalactites." Reduced to a 

 powder the stone is used as a tonic. Compare F. Porter Smith, Contributions 

 toward the Materia Medica of China, p. 204; Geerts, Produits de la nature japonaise 

 et chinoise, p. 342; F. de Mely, Lapidaires chinois, pp. 92, 254. Important Chinese 

 notes on this mineral are contained in the Yiin lin shi p'u of Tu Wan (Ch. c, p. 8), 

 Ling-wai tai to of 1 178 by Chou K'u-fei (Ch. 7, p. 13), and Pin ts'ao kang mu (Ch. 9, 

 p. 17b). 



