90 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 



The SaTT^iEtpoc was, we are told, exported from Barbarikon. 

 If this were the true sapphire of modern times, its export from 

 the most northern port, and, therefore, furthest from the recog- 

 nised sources of the stone, would in itself be difficult to explain. 

 It has been, however, clearly shown by King [Precious Stones] 

 and Dana [Mineralogy] that the Sa7r<^£tpoe of Theophrastus, 

 Pliny, and Isidorus, &c,, was what we now call lapis-lazuli. 

 For Pliny says, " Sap^jheiros cceruleus est cum purpura, habens 

 aureos sparsos." Now lapis-lazuli is characterised by having 

 scattered through the blue mass small crystalline particles of 

 golden-coloured iron pyrites. 



As further evidence in favour of this interpretation, there is 

 the fact that there are very ancient mines of lapis-lazuli at 

 Firgamu in Badakshan (not Beluchistan, as has been incorrectly 

 stated by some writers), and it might very easily have been brought 

 by caravans through Afghanistan to Barbarikon. The mines 

 alluded to are described by Wood in the account of his journey 

 to the Oxus, and both Marco Polo and Tavernier refer to the 

 occurrence of the mineral in that region. 



Captain Hutton, in 1841, found it on sale at Kandahar. He 

 mentions several places in Afghanistan where it was said to 

 occur.^ 



The YaKivdog, on the other hand, which was exported from the 

 southern ports Mouziris and Nilkunda, is thought by some to 

 have been the sapphire, as also was the hyacinthus of Pliny 

 (xxxvii. 44), and its variety the asteria {id. xxxvii. 49). The 

 ijakut, as the name is now understood in India, is either a ruby, or 

 the inferior spinel (more properly called laal), or even a garnet. 

 According to Salmasius, quoted by Mr. M'Crindle, the YaKivQog is 

 the ruby, while according to Solinus it would appear to be the 

 amethyst. This is a point on which Indian geology throws no 

 certain light, as neither rubies nor sapphires appear to have been 

 indigenous products.^ 



In the Persian work on precious stones quoted hereafter, it will 

 be seen that in the thirteenth century the same generic name was 

 applied to the ruby, sapphire, and other varieties of corundum. 



1 Vide Economic Geology of India, p. 628. 



- It should be stated that there have been recent discoveries . of sapphires in the 

 Himalayas, but there is no evidence that they were ever found there before. 



