November 3, 1916] 



SCIENCE 



643 



specialists as well as general readers are to be 

 congratulated that this subject has now been 

 adequately treated in all its manifold aspects 

 by one so thoroughly qualified for the task as 

 Dr. Joseph E. Pogue. The writer has dis- 

 posed his material very systematically and 

 logically. The first chapter (pp. 9-22) is de- 

 voted to the history of the stone and embraces 

 a series of citations from early writers, both 

 classical and Oriental, in chronological order. 

 This is followed by a short chapter on the 

 mineralogy of the stone (pp. 23-27). ■ The 

 localities where turquoise has been found are 

 enumerated and fully described in the next 

 chapter (pp. 28-59). To the geological side 

 of the subject is devoted the fifth chapter, on 

 the origin of turquoise. The four remaining 

 chapters deal, respectively, with the use of 

 turquoise (pp. 68-104), the chalchihuitl ques- 

 tion (pp. 105-109), the mythology and folk- 

 lore of turquoise (pp. 110-128), and the tech- 

 nology of turquoise (pp. 129-136). There is 

 also a very copious bibliography, embracing 

 over a thousand titles (pp. 137-154), and an 

 excellent index (pp. 155-161). 



The turquoise mines of the Sinai Peninsula, 

 the oldest in the world, were worked from 

 about the time of the I. Dynasty (about 4500 

 B.C.) 1 to the reign of Eameses VI. (1161-1156 

 B.C.), since which time turquoise does not ap- 

 pear to have been much used in ancient Egypt. 

 The ancient mines in the Wady Maghara were 

 rediscovered in 1845 by Major MacDonald, a 

 British cavalry officer. The Egyptian name 

 may have been Mafeh or Mafhat, although 

 this word appears rather to have designated 

 malachite and other green stones. The writer 

 of the present notice has conjectured that the 



i The uncertainty as to the exact initial date of 

 the I. Dynasty is shown by the difference in the 

 figures given by leading Egyptologists. The latest 

 date is that of Lepsius, 3892 B.C. Then come 

 Brugseh Bey with 4400 B.C., Flinders Petrie with 

 4777 B.C., and Mariette with 5004 B.C. Champol- 

 lion, the father of Egyptology, even gave 5867 

 B.C., as the opening date. Brugseh Bey states that 

 turquoise was already mined in Egypt in 4000 B.C., 

 during the III. Dynasty, at the time of King 

 Snefru, and that mining was not carried on later 

 than the reign of Barneses II., 1300 B.C. 



shoham stones of the breastplate and on the 

 shoulders of the Hebrew high priest may have 

 been turquoises. 2 Strange to say a similar un- 

 certainty hangs over the question whether 

 Pliny's callaina means malachite or turquoise. 

 Here again, although Pliny apparently wishes 

 to describe a green stone, the word or a variant 

 (also used by Pliny) callais came to mean the 

 stone later called turquoise. A very probable 

 conjecture accepted by Dr. Berthold Laufer, is 

 that Pliny's sky-blue jasper (jaspis aerizusa) 

 is the turquoise. 3 As an aid to the study of the 

 early mentions Dr. Pogue has given a great 

 number of passages referring to the turquoise, 

 from classical and Oriental writers, in transla- 

 tion, although we must bear in mind that in 

 some cases the English rendering " turquoise " 

 is not certainly the meaning of the foreign 

 original. The earliest use of this name, signi- 

 fying that the stone was brought by way of 

 Turkey to western Europe, is in the Latin gem- 

 treatise of Arnoldus Saxo, written in the early 

 part of the thirteenth century. 



In the New World, among the Aztecs, the 

 name chalchihuitl seems to have been applied 

 to both green and blue stones, as with the other 

 designations we have noted, and undoubtedly 

 some chalchihuitls were turquoises. Of its use 

 in decoration by the ancient Mexicans, certain 

 curious masks, inlaid with this stone, offer 

 incontrovertible evidence. The finest of these 

 are in the Ohristy Collection of the British 

 Museum (see Plate 15 of Dr. Pogue's book). 

 Full descriptions are also given of typical tur- 

 quoise-incrusted or decorated ornamental ob- 

 jects and jewelry made in later times by the 

 Pueblo Indians and by the Eavajos of Arizona 

 and New Mexico. 



The details as to turquoise mining in our 

 day at the old Nishapur deposits are very in- 

 teresting and valuable (pp. 37-39). The out- 

 put is carefully classified into three categories, 

 the first-class material, being called Angushtari, 

 literally, "ring stones"; large pieces of this 

 have brought as much as $1,500, and pieces no 



2 George Frederick Kunz, ' ' Curious Lore of 

 Precious Stones," Philadelphia and London, 1913, 

 p._ 299. 

 *3 Pogue's "The Turquois," p. 11. 



