THE ONYX MARBLES: THEIR ORIGIN, COMPOSITION, AND 

 USES, BOTH ANCIENT AND MODERN. 



liy (4e()Hge p. Merrill. 

 Curator, Deparlineiit of (rcoloiiy, U. S. Xational Miiseiii 



"It now remains for iis to speak of stones, or in other wonts, the leading folly of the day ; to say noth- 

 ing at all of our taste for gems and amber, crystal and murrhine vases. For everything of which 

 we have previously treated (down to the present book) may by some possibility or other have the 

 ai)pearance of having been created for the sake of man ; but as to the mountains, nature made these 

 for herself, as a kind of bulwark for keeping together the bowels of the earth ; as also for the purpose 

 of curbing the violence of rivers, of breaking the waves of the sea, and so. by opposing to them 

 the very h.irdest ot her materials, putting a check upon those elements which are never at rest. 

 Antl yet, we must hew down these mountains, forsooth, and carry them off; and this for no other 

 reason than to gratify our luxurious inclinations." — Pliny. 



Since very early times civilized man has shown an ever increasing 

 teiulency to decorate his home and his temples with objects beautiful 

 and rare. With but a limited knowledge of metallurgy, with methods 

 of manufacture crude in the extreme, the scope of his means was at 

 first limited to such materials as nature had already prepared for his 

 use or as could be wrought into objects of beauty by the few arts at his 

 command. It is but natural, therefore, that the gems aud precious 

 stones early came into demand for household as well as ])ersonal adorn- 

 ment, while the marbles and alabasters, the granites, porphyries, and 

 more vulgar lime and sandstones became equally desirable for purposes 

 of interior decoration and for the rougher exteriors of houses and pal- 

 aces, temples and tombs, where\^er civilization had gained sufficient 

 footnold to rendei them objects of admiration, or where a desire for 

 immortality had spurred the builder to seek a less perishable material 

 than wood. 



Hence it is that the onyx and sardonyx, the diamond, the opal, 

 and the i>earl, as well as marbles and alabasters were thousands of years 

 ago as well known and — among the wealthier classes — even more univer- 

 sally used than to day. It is indeed a singular fact that in all these years 

 that have elapsed since history began, scarcely a gem or ornamental 

 stone of more than local importance has been discovered but was 

 known, in at least some of its varieties, and utilized by a jieople so 

 ancient that we can read their history only m their ruins. 



Among the most beautiful of the many stones thus used for both 

 building and for interior decoration, were certain travertines and cave 



541 



