130 Derivations of Mineral Names. 
that they nearly all contained “brimstone” (Cotgrave).! Accord- 
ing to Boyle (about 1670), “ Marchasitical stones” abound in those 
‘portions of the earth where the temperature is excessively high. 
From various old writers, it would appear that the Arabic physician 
Avicenna (about 1020) had previously used the name. A rather 
fanciful derivation brings the word from the Ar. marv, kyass, idd— 
whitish, glistening flint (Kobell). 
4, Among the mineral names there are some which have retained 
their original form with surprising regularity and have distributed 
it through many languages. 
JASPER descends from Heb. iashpheh, Ar. iasheb or iashef, Pers. 
iashm, Gr. edoztc, L. iaspis, M. H. G. jaspis, O. Fr. diaspre, Fr, 
iaspe, O. Engl. jaspe, jaspre, Engl. jasper, H. G. and Sw. jaspis. 
“ His stone is jaspe.” 
—Gower, about 1360. 
‘ The floore of jasp and emeraud was dight.”’ 
—Spenser, 1552-1599. 
’ laoneg is used by Plato (429 to 348 B.c.) and others after him; 
L. iaspis, by Virgil and Pliny, over eighteen hundred years ago. 
SAPPHIRE is derived from Heb. sappir, Ar. safir. In Gr. the ` 
two p’s of the Hebrew persisted, but the second was aspirated: 
cangepog. M. H. G. used the word saphir ; O. Engl. saphire:— 
“ Of rubies, saphires and of perles white.” 
—Chaucer, 1340-1400. 
In It. the word has become safiro, zafiro ; in Sp. zafir, Fr. saphir, 
Sw. safir. The H. G. and Engl. versions, however, retain the two 
p’s, as in the Greek. | 
The It. zafiro was perpetuated in obs. G. zaffer, used to designate 
blue cobalt-glass and blue colors; Engl. zaffre describes a purplish 
cobalt color. 
Sandexpos was used by Dionysios Periegetes about nineteen hun- 
dred years ago, apparently in connection with the gem which now 
carries the name. Pliny also describes “sapphires,” but evidently 
not the precious stone, as he states that it glitters with marks and 
specks of gold ; this would apply to Lapis Lazuli? Agricola (1546) 
1 Gessner (1565) claims the following: “ Pyrites recentiores marcha- 
sitam vocant, nostri corrupto nomine martistein.” 
2 “ Sapphirus enim et aureis punctis collucet.”’—Pliny, Venice edition. 
