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giving them the forms of animals and fruits. 

 Such works, like the perforated and sculptured 

 emeralds, which are found in the Cordilleras of 

 New Grenada and Quito, denote anterior civil- 

 ization. The present inhabitants of those coun- 

 tries, particularly those of the hot region, so 

 little comprehend the possibility of cutting hard 

 stones, (the emerald, jade, compact feldspar, 

 and rock-crystal), that they imagine the green 

 stone is naturally soft when taken out of the 

 earth, and hardens after having been moulded 

 by the hand. 



It results from these observations, that the 

 natural soil of the Amazon stone is not in the 

 valley of the river Amazon ; and that, far from 

 deriving it's name from the river, it has obtained 

 it, as well as the river itself, from a nation of 

 warlike women, whom Father Acunna,and Ovie- 

 do in his letter to Cardinal Bembo, compare to 

 the Amazons of the ancient world. What we see 

 in our cabinets under the false denomination of 

 Amazon stone (amazonenstein) , is neither jade, 

 nor compact feldspar, but a common feldspar 

 of an apple-green colour, that comes from the 

 Ourals and lake Onega in Russia, and which I 

 never saw in the granitic mountains of Guyana. 

 Sometimes also this very rare and hard stone of 

 the Amazons is confounded with the hatchet- 

 nephrite (heilstein)* of Werner, which has much 



* Punamustein, jade axinien. The stone-hatchets found 



