THE AMAZON-STONE. 307 



The present inhabitants of those countries, particularly in 

 the hot region, so little comprehend the possibility of cut- 

 ting hard stones, (the emerald, jade, compact feldspar and 

 rock-crystal,) that they imagine the green stone is solt when 

 taken out of the earth, and that it hardens after having been 

 moulded by the hand. 



The natural soil of the Amazon-stone is not in the valley 

 of the river Amazon. It does not derive its name from the 

 river, but like the river itself, the stone has been named after 

 a nation of warlike women, whom Father Acunha, and 

 Oviedo, in his letter to cardinal Bembo, compare to the 

 Amazons of the ancient world. What we see in our cabinets 

 under the false denomination of Amazon-stone, is neither 

 jade, nor compact feldspar, but a common feldspar of an 

 apple-green colour, that comes from the Ural mountains 

 and on lake Onega in Russia, but which I never saw in the 

 granitic mountains of Guiana. Sometimes also this very 

 rare and hard Amazon-stone is confounded with the hatchet- 

 nephrite (beilstein)* of Werner, which has much less tena- 

 city. The substance which I obtained from the hands of 

 the Indians, belongs to the sattssurite^ to the real jade, 

 which resembles compact feldspar, and which forms one of 

 the constituent parts of the verde de Corsica, or gabbro.J It 

 takes a fine polish, and passes from apple-green to emerald- 

 green ; it is translucent at the edges, extremely tenacious, 

 and in a high degree sonorous. These Amazon stones were 

 formerly cut by the natives into very thin plates, perforated 

 at the centre, and suspended by a thread, and these plates 

 yield an almost metallic sound if struck by another hard 

 body. 1 1 This fact confirms the connection which we find, 

 notwithstanding the difference of fracture and of specific 

 gravity between the saussurite and the siliceous basis of the 

 porphyrschiefer, which is the phonolite (klingstein). I have 



* Punamustein (jade axinien). The stone hatchets found in America, 

 tor instance in Mexico, are not of beilstein, but of compact feldspar. 



t Jade of Saussure, according to the system of Brongniart ; tenacious 

 jade, and compact tenacious feldspar of Hatty ; some varieties of the 

 rarioJithf of Werner. 



J Euphotide of Hauy, or schillerfels of Raumer. 



|| M. Brongniart, to whom 1 showed these plates on my return U 

 Europe, very justly compared these jades of Parime to the sonorou* 

 tones employed by the Chinese in their musical instruments called king 



