404 NATURAL HISTORY OF ARABIA. 



suade them that mines of that precious article were known 

 to him, and to nobody else ; an assertion to which they 

 paid not the slightest credit. 



No veins of silver are known to exist ; but a small 

 quantity of that metal is extracted from the rich lead- 

 mines in Oman. As the lead of that province is extreme- 

 ly fusible, the inhabitants export it in great abundance ; 

 and it forms an article of considerable traffic from the port 

 of Muscat. In Wady Osh near Sinai the Arabs collect 

 native cinnabar, which is usually found in smah 1 pieces 

 about the size of a pigeon's egg. It is very seldom crys- 

 tallized, though there are sometimes nodules on the surface. 

 The fracture is in perpendicular fibres ; and it stains the 

 fingers of a dark colour. 



Of precious stones, strictly so called, Niebuhr could 

 learn nothing; and he supposes that in ancient times 

 they must have been all imported from India. Though 

 the onyx is common in Yemen, especially between Taas 

 and Mount Sumarra, he did not think it probable that the 

 emerald was indigenous. There is a hill that bears this 

 name, but it is on the Egyptian side of the Gulf, and 

 forms part of that large chain of granitic mountains that 

 runs parallel with the Red Sea. The agate, called the 

 Mocha stone, comes from Surat, and the finest carne- 

 lions are brought from the Gulf of Cambay. The sma- 

 ragdus cholos, or inferior emerald, which according to 

 Pliny was used in building to ornament the walls of 

 houses, was probably diallage ; and some writers (Malte 

 Brun) have conjectured that the aromatites, or aromatic 

 stone of the ancients, was amber. In a mountain near 

 Damar is found a stone which the Arabs call ayek ye- 

 mani, and which they hold in the highest estimation. 

 It is of a red or rather a light-brown colour, and seems to 

 be a carnelion. The natives set it in rings or bracelets, and 

 ascribe to it the talismanic virtue of healing wounds, and 

 stanching blood when instantly applied. The topaz be- 

 longs to Arabia, and derived its name, according to Pliny, 

 from the island Topazos (now called Zemorget) in the 

 lied Sea. He also mentions Cytes, another islet where 

 good specimens were found. 



Stones of less value are by no means rare. In the 

 neighbourhood of Loheia, the Danish travellers found a 

 bluish gypsum, a gray schistus, and spheroidal marcasites, 

 in beds of grit-stone, which are used in building. Near 



