34 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIS‘1. 
nation of traders then in existence, and having in their hands 
great commercial interests. ° Thus Ezekiel ‘27, 3, “And say unto 
Tyrus, O thou that art situate at the entry of the sea, which 
art a merchant of the people for many isles.” Further that 
mineral products played a large part in the trade of Tyre is 
evidenced by other passages in the same chapter:—“Tarshish 
was thy merchant by reason of the multitude of all kind of 
riches; with silver, iron, tin and lead, they traded in thy fairs. 
Javan, Tubal, and Meshech, they were thy merchants: they 
traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market. 
tote Syria was thy merchant by reason of the multitude 
of the wares of thy making: they occupied in thy fairs with 
emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, 
and. agate... .. Dan also and Javan going to and fro 
oceupied in thy fairs: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were 
in thy market... . . . The merchants of Sheba and Raamah, 
they were thy merchants: they occupied in thy fairs with chief 
of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold.” 
It is not an easy matter in many cases to make certain of 
precisely what stone is meant by a particular name in our 
Bible, for the reason that not only has the significance of the 
word used in some instances altered in course of time, but oc- 
casionally a name formerly attached to a particular stone is 
now applied by us to one quite different, or the incidence of 
the original name has been lost altogether. Further, stones 
formerly grouped together under a common title have, with the 
progress of science and the perfection of means of differentia- 
tion, been separated and given distinctive names, and it is 
sometimes impossible to make certain of which of these was 
actually referred to when the original name was mentioned in 
the Bible; while again, stones which were formerly considered 
quite distinct are now known to be merely varieties of the same 
gem. Thus the Romans under the name carbunculus included 
various red, hard, transparent stones which we now separate 
into different mineral species, bearing different names, amongst 
which are such well known gem stones as, corundum (Oriental 
ruby), spinel (Balas ruby), garnet, varieties of which are 
almandine and pyrope, all of these differing from one another 
in important constitutional properties though all possess the 
common attributes of hardness, transparency and colour. 
We find in the Bible numerous scattered allusions to parti- 
cular gem stones, in most cases the reference being purely 
figurative, as for instance in Exodus 24, 10—“and they saw ~ 
