4oB ACCOUNTS RESPECTING LINNAEUS. 



and perfeftly crystalized ruby, which I had received at Copenhagen of 

 Mr. Cappel, to whom Dr, Koenig had sent it from Ceylon; its uncom- 

 mon sexagonous blunted columnar form quite struck him, having 

 never before seen any thing of the kind. 1 coUefted afterwards many 

 more species of this class, some of which were still greater curiosities. 

 I stood indebted to a fatal catastrophe for the acquisition of these trea- 

 sures; namely to the ship of Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, which 

 was wrecked during the last American war on the coast of the Dutch 

 settlements, and the cargo of which was sold at Amsterdam. 



I presented to the sight ofLiNN/Eus a curiosity, still newer and 

 more interesting to him. This was the opal called 0 cuius mundi. 

 He freely owned that he had never seen it, and borrowed the account 

 which is inserted in his system from Wallerius's mineralogy. In 

 my opinion, I was the only one at that time, Vv'ho was positively ac- 

 quainted with the nature of this stone. — " I envy you," exclaimed the 

 venerable Linn^us, "the possession of a gem, which has hitherto 

 " exclusively been preserved in the British Museum*; and I have not 

 " now the least doubt respecting the genuine reality of this extraordi- 

 " nary opal of which you have given me an account some years ago." — 

 Every shadow of doubt was elFeclually removed, when A showed him 

 the very opal itself, which is the mother of the most beautiful and 

 rarest oculus mundi. His joy and satisfaftion was also farther in- 

 creased, when I laid before him tht rainbow coloured agate which I also 

 discovered, and the brilliancy of whose colours surpass the most 

 beautiful gems of the East. Enraptured with admiration at the beauty of 



* Sir Hans Sloane gave five hundred pounds for two of those gems, which are not 

 larger than a pea. ' 



' ' this 



