46 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. XIII. 



sort is the pijdzakl, that is, the one coming from the district of Pijazak. 

 I am inclined to think that we may look upon this word as the source 

 of the Chinese transcription pi-ya-se, whereby its meaning is moreover 

 confirmed. It is true the Chinese word is not traceable earlier than the 

 eighteenth century, but it is doubtless a much more ancient word of the 

 colloquial language which for this reason was not registered in the 

 standard dictionaries; it is, however, entered, as numerous other 

 colloquial words, in the "Dictionary in Four Languages" published 

 by the Emperor K'ien-lung. Mention is made of pi-ya-se in the 

 "Statutes of the Manchu Dynasty" {Ta TsHng hut Hen fu, Ch. 43, 

 p. 5) where they are granted as a privilege to all imperial court-ladies 

 to be worn on their sable caps.^ There is, however, an older trace of 

 the word in a source of the Mongol period where, in my opinion, it has 

 been misjudged by Bretschneider. The Chinese traveler Ch'ang 

 T6, who was despatched in 1259 by the Mongol Emperor Mangu as 

 envoy to his brother Hulagu, king of Persia, and whose diary, under 

 the title Si shi ki, was edited in 1263 by Liu Yu, reports that a precious 

 stone by the name ya-se of five different colors and of very high price 

 is found on the rocks of the mountains in the south-western countries. 

 Bretschneider ^ is inclined to identify this word with the Arabic 

 yashm or yashb, our word jasper, which seems to me very improbable. 

 The stone ya-se is mentioned by Ch'ang T^ together with lapis lazuli 



1 The character pi in the word pi-ya-se may explain also why the se-se are desig- 

 nated by some authors as pi "green," which may simply be due to a reminiscence of 

 the word pi-ya-se where the word pi enters as an attempt at reproducing a foreign 

 sound. Besides, al-Beruni, in the passage quoted by Wiedemann, speaks of four 

 color variations in the balas ruby, — red, violet, green and yellow. The Armenian 

 lapidarium (K. P. Patkanov, /. c, p. 19) ascribes to spinels a red color, the colors of 

 the garnet, of fire, of vinegar, of wine, of the scorpion, and of peas. A. Boetius de 

 Boot (/. c, p. 149) states in regard to the color of Rubinus Balassius: "Habet iste 

 Rubinus laccae florentinae, aut cremesinum colorem, ita ut parum caerulei coloris 

 vero rubro admixtum videatur, rosei coloris rubentis instar." R. Miethe (in 

 Kramer, Der Mensch und die Erde, Vol. V, p. 377) describes spinels as black or 

 brown-black, frequently brownish, rarely green and blue. O. C. Farrington 

 (Gems and Gem Minerals, p. 96), besides red, gives also the colors orange, green, 

 blue, indigo, white and black. Max Bauer (Precious Stones, p. 297) has the fol- 

 lowing: "Spinels of a rose-red or light shade of color inclined to blue or violet are 

 referred to as 'balas rubies.' They not infrequently combine with this character a 

 peculiarly milky sheen which considerably detracts from their value. Stones the 

 color of which is more decidedly blue or violet resemble, although much paler, some 

 almandines, and are known as 'almandine spinels.' Violet spinels, which are not 

 too pale in color, often resemble both the true amethyst and the ' oriental amethyst, ' 

 and indeed have sometimes been put on the market under the latter name." Blue 

 and black spinels are discussed by the same author on p. 299. Red and purple balas 

 rubies are distinguished also by Yang Sh^n {Ko chi king yiian, Ch. 33, p. i) who, ac- 

 cording to Mayers (Chinese Reader's Manual, p. 270) lived from 1488 to 1559 

 (Giles,' Biographical Dictionary, p. 912, sets- the date of his death at 1529; but 

 Wylie, Notes on Chin. Lit., p. 154, assigns 1544 to one of his works). 



^ Mediaeval Researches, Vol. I, p. 151, and Chinese Recorder, Vol. VI, 1875, p. 16 

 (where the Chinese characters are given). 



