THE AMAZOh'-STONE. 
3!)7 
The present inliabitaiits of those countries, particularly in 
the hot region, so little comprehend the possibility of cut* 
ting hard stones, (the emerald, jade, compact feldspar and 
rock-crystal,) that they imagine the green stone is soft when 
taken out of the earth, and that it hardens after having been 
moulded by the hand. 
The natural soil of the Amazon-stone is not in the valley 
of the river Amazon. It does not derive its name from the 
river, hut like the river itself, the stone has been named after 
a nation of warlike women, whom Father Acuuha, and 
Oviedo, in his letter to cardinal Bembo, compare to the 
Amazons of the ancient world. \\ hat we see in our cabinets 
under the false denomination of Amazon-stone, is neither 
jade, nor compact feldspar, but a common feldspar of an 
apple-green colour, that comes from the Ural mountains 
and on lake Onega in Russia, hut which I never saw in the 
granitic mountains of Guiana. Sometimes also this very- 
rare and hard Amazon-stone is confounded with the hatchet- 
nephrite (beilstein)* of Werner, which has much less tena- 
city. The substance which 1 obtained from the hands ot 
the Indians, belongs to the saussurite , t to the real jade, 
which resembles compact feldspar, and which forms one ot 
the constituent parts of the verde de Corsica, or gabbro.J It 
takes a fine polish, and passes from apple-green to emerald- 
green ; it is translucent at the edges, extremely tenacious, 
and in a high degree sonorous. These Amazon stones were 
formerly cut by the natives into very thin plates, perforated 
at the centre, and suspended by a thread, and these plates 
yield an almost metallic sound if struck by another hard 
body. || This fact confirms the connection which we find, 
notwithstanding the difference of fracture and of speciiie 
gravity between the saussurite and the siliceous basis of the 
porphjrschiefer, which is the phonolite (kllngstein). I have 
* Punamustein (jade iwinien). The stone hatchets found in America, 
for instance in Mexico, are not of beilstein, but of compact feldspar. 
t Jade of Saussure, according to the system of Brongniart ; tenacious 
jade, and compact tenacious feldspar of llaiiy ; some varieties of the 
variolilhe of Werner. 
J Euphotide of Hauy, or schillerfels of Ruumer. 
tl M. Brongniart, to whom I showed these plates on my return t« 
f'nrop:-, very justly compared these jades of Parime to the sonorous 
stones employed by the Chinese in their musical instruments called king , 
