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Field Museum of Natural History 
burden, and forms even like ivy and the trappings of 
horses, — alluding to undulated and moss agates. The 
druggists of his time, according to Pliny, used these 
as stones for grinding drugs, and the very sight of 
them was regarded as beneficial for the eyes. Held in 
the mouth, they were believed to allay thirst. 
In the sixteenth century Limodra in Guzerat was 
the principal seat of the agate industry, the mines 
being situated four miles from the town. This locality 
was visited early in the sixteenth century by Duarte 
Barbosa, a Portuguese traveller, who reports, "Here 
is found an agate (alaquequa,) rock, which is a white, 
milky, or red stone, which is made much redder in the 
fire. They extract it in large pieces, and there are cun- 
ning craftsmen here who shape it, bore it and make it 
up in divers fashions ; that is to say, long, eight-sided, 
round, and olive-leaf shapes, also rings, knobs for hilts 
of short swords and daggers, and other ways. The 
dealers come hither from Cambaya to buy them, and 
they sell them on the coast of the Red Sea, whence they 
pass to our lands by way of Cairo and Alexandria." 
Barbosa found also that a great amount of work 
was done at Cambay in coral, agate, and other stones. 
In the beginning of the seventeenth century the head- 
quarters of the agate industry appear to have been 
transferred from Limodra to Cambay, in the Bombay 
Presidency. Henceforth only the preliminary opera- 
tions of sorting the stones and exposing them to fire 
to develop their color were performed at Limodra, and 
this is the case even now. They are then taken to Cam- 
bay to be cut, polished, and worked up. 
The Portuguese word alaquequa or alaqueca, also 
laqueca, is derived from Arabic aV aqiq, and refers to 
the red carnelians exported from India. The Portu- 
guese settled in India called olhos de gato ("cat's 
eyes") what is known as Indian eye-stone or eye- 
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