408 
ACCOUNTS RESPECTING LINNAEUS. 
and perfetlly 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 colle&ed 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 oI'Linn^us a curiosity, still newer and" 
more interesting to him. This was the opal called Oculus 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, who was positively ac- 
quainted with the nature of this stone. — 44 I envy you,” exclaimed the 
venerable Linn^us, “the possession of a gem, which has hitherto 
44 exclusively been preserved in the British Museum*; and I have not 
44 now the least doubt respe&ing the genuine reality of this extraordi- 
44 nary opal of which you have given me an account some years ago.” — 
Every shadow of doubt was effe&ually removed, when I showed him 
the very opal itself, which is the mother of the most beautiful and 
rarest oculus mundi. His joy and satisfa&ion was also farther in- 
creased, when I laid before him the 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 
