456 PELOPONNESUS. 
CHAP, ascribed in the East: we found it among the 
most antient amulets in the catacombs of 
Saccdra in Egypt. With regard to the former, 
it is exceedingly difficult at this time to deter- 
mine the particular stone called Beryll by the 
Antients. We learn from Epiphanius, that it 
was of & yellow colour 1 , and found near Mount 
Taurus. But there were other varieties of 
Beryll ; one resembling the pupil of a serpent's 
eye * ; another like wax, found near the mouth 
of the Euphrates*. Hence it is evident that 
different minerals bore this name among the 
Antients : the first variety may have been our 
Topaz ; the second and third were, in all 
probability, different appearances of Chalcedony. 
THEOPHRASTUS does not mention the Beryll; 
and in Pliny's account of the stone, fifty different 
minerals may be included. He begins by 
placing it among Emeralds*; and the account he 
gives of the hexangular shape preserved by the 
lapidaries in polishing, seems to prove that it 
had the natural form of our Emerald, care being 
(1) A<Va,- BHPTAAlONi yXayx/v piv im, *. r. X. Epiphanius de xu 
Gemrnis, quse erant in Vcste Aaronis, p. 10. Ttgur. 1565. 
(2) Taif xon rw a^6a.\ft,ui TOU "i^xxoirot tf-rt <rtt,ir).nff'i. Ibid. 
(3) 'Effn 3 Ktti aXXi irX;y oftatu *> Ibid. 
(4) Vid. Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. xxxvii. c. 6. p. 535. torn. III. L.Bat. 
1C35. 
