\ 
of glafs of antimony; 
“hour of having been 
GEMS. 
"For the amethy/t. To 24 ounces of the Mayence bafe, 
-add,for colour, four drachms ee manganefe and four 
“grains : cena a 7 
For t crald.— i - ‘ounces of either of te ‘bafes, 
add, for sas one dr schon - mountain ee and fix grains 
an e of the fecond 
bafe, add, for colour, 20 ne ve gi 7 antimony, and 
al ° 
Fo r i, common opal.—To an ounce of the third bafe add, 
for colour, ten grains of horn-filver, two grains of magnet, 
and 26 gra ains ‘of an abforbent éa rth. 
EMS, 
mes, Fr. ; gemme, gemme antiche figura, weal; 3 potions ae 
riods of which fearcely any rec 
engraved ftones ftill extant aeaie us, with tolerable exacinels, 
to mark the an eras through which ve art has pafled. 
Wpon the whole, ppears, that its origin is coeval with 
that of the fifter Loe in which the icine eed that, 
like them, it had its zenith of perfeCtion ; was, with them, 
buried under the ruins of the Roman empire, and revived to- 
wards the end of the fifteenth centur 
ry 
7 the moft ancient records we poffefs, the holy ferip- . 
loyed 
tribes. But from fome apparently very ancient engraved 
gems difcovered in India, with Shanfcrit nenucns "Rape 
‘and others have i that A fia has a fair claim to the ho- 
the poffeffion of that art even before 
igypt: “but their nee of reafoning does not appear altoge- 
ther pcenleis The mechanical part of the art of engrav- 
ing was au to a high pitch of perfeCtion by the E 
tians, but they can feercely be faid in any inftance to have 
elevated ee min conception of ideal beauty. 
They fir erased this art for engraving hieroglyphic 
id granite, and afterwards extende 
e hard ftones of which we find moft of their feals and 
arabe are formed, fome- of which are of admirable work- 
ip. 
T he exact period when this art was introduced into Greece 
cannot eafily be determined. Pliny fuppofes that rings were 
not known at the time o the Trojan war; but Plutarch is 
‘dying Othryades is resented, ates as 
. Anacreon. The fir e of any engraver ion 
by the writers of cneauia is ete of Theodorus of Samos, 
who i is faid to have engraved, 740 years before ‘Chrilt, that 
merald which Polycrates threw into the fea. 
e Greeks were ae paflionate nye of bate and 
8YP-- 
performers. In Greece, the art had arrived at the higheft | 
“pitch of perfection at the time of Alexander the Great. It 
Rome, to prattife their art ; ‘but it 
is uncertain whether they ares introduced it ; all we know 
is, that the Latin tongue no term a icipel ess of 
niin pk ie and that song the ma 
ated on ancient gems, 
ae their ey ideas on the fone were all anithed to- 
ge ether. But, from the decline of the Roman empire, dur- 
ing the darknefs of thofe ‘ages, in which all the arts and 
fciences soak ed on the very brink 
chanical par 
ferved, ae in Italy and the provinces of the 
M ems, efpecially in relief, called cameos, were 
manufactured as well for ornamentin g holy veffels, as prayer, 
and other religious books, Nor was the ufe of feals and 
feal-rings altogether ‘slecntin ued. In the i ; 
t Berlin were preferved feveral litany and pfa 
of the oth and following century, richly omnamented with 
and 
Greek empire, 
engraved ftones of the fame periods, of them, ace 
cordin to Sulzer, were not without a In the fame 
er the author o e  Memorie degli intagliotori 
menti ed.gem of the fourt 
right, - in oblerving, that — 
the aoa! caule of the cay of the glyptic art in Italy, 
under the popes - and Paul II. was the then 
prevailing talte for “colleing the numerous remains of 
was not entirely 
new at that period, and that it was not Florenee in parti- 
cular where it was reftared to life, appears from the con. 
temporary productions of Domenichino, a Milanefe, who, 
en account of his {kill in executing raifed work, was fur- 
name a Camei. When the art of engraving on ha 
ftones was thus en couraged, a “again cultivated with 
zeal, He rtitts of genius, it ne ail to ke 
Rome in 1527; a great number of excellent artifts 
cognofeenti of thofe times were not 
by them, From this fecond oe 8 
{ciences, the art of engraving on flones fpread 9 over other 
5C2 mitrica. 
