CHAPTER I. 

 STONES. 



WE shall restrict our examination to those stones specifically 

 mentioned in the Bible ; and we have cause to regret the scantiness 

 of our information on nearly all of them. As they are of few kinds, 

 and extremely difficult to be. identified, we shall attempt no scien- 

 tific arrangement, but take them in alphabetical order. 



ADAMANT. 



THIS is one of the names, given to the diamond, but all we can 

 collect from those passages of Scripture in which the shemiris men- 

 tioned ( Jer. xvii. 13 ; Ezek. iii. 9 ; Zech. vii. 12), is, that it is some 

 very hard substance. Scheuchzer thinks it was the smiris, which 

 was used for engraving, polishing, and cutting other hard stones 

 and glasses. 



AGATE. 



THE word, shebo, occurs only in Exod. xxviii. 19, and xxix. 12 $ 

 and interpreters are pretty generally agreed, that it denotes the agate, 

 which derives its name from the river Achates, in Sicily, in the 

 vicinity of which the ancients obtained it in considerable quanti- 

 ties. 



The agate is a semi-transparent stone of the quartz family, * in 

 which Nature seems to divert herself,' says Lamy, ' with the differ- 

 ent things she imprints upon them.' It is well known that the 

 agates change or vary their appearance without end ; and Parkhurst 

 inclines to think, that, shebo may be a name of the species from this 

 circumstance, q. d. The varier ? 



It must be remarked, that agate is not, as some writers imagine, 

 a simple mineral: it is composed of various species of the quartz, 

 family, intimately blended together. Of these minerals, sometimes 

 only two, and sometimes three or more, occur in the same agate ; 



