On account of its olive-like or bottle-green colour it is also called Bottle Stone or Bouteillenstein. Dr. F. G. Suess suggested Tectite from the Greek TEKTOS, melted. Mr. R. H. Walcott called them obsidianites. They have also been termed Australites, Billitonites (from Billiton Island) etc. They were highly regarded by the Australian aboriginal as charm stones in sickness and trouble. Mr. W. F. Chapman, A. L. S., of the Melbourne Museum agrees with Professor Rutley as to the non-volcanic origin of the Obsidianite, and indicates the action of lightning in their formation. In this he would have the support of the ancient student who connects the obsidian with the heavenly Aquarius, the “sign of air.” OLIVINE. So-called by Werner in 1790. (See CHRYSOLITE.) ONYX “_Called by the onyx round the sleeper stand Black dreams; and phantoms rise, a grisly band._” MARBODUS. The onyx derives its name from the Greek ONYX, ONYCHOS a finger-nail, and is as previously stated a variety of chalcedony. It has been variously written as onyx stone, onyx, onix, oniche, onice, onyse. The name of the stone is said to have sprung from the legend which tells that Cupid, finding Venus asleep on the river bank, cut her nails with the sharp point of his arrow. In this story is enwrapped the mystery of earth birth which through love enters the gate of Cancer and with the aid of the moistures, materializes. The same parallel is expressed in the Book of Genesis where it is written that previous to the birth of the world the “Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” This occult philosophy is stressed by the Platonist Macrobius who writes that the soul, descending to the sphere of its spiritual death, the Earth, passes through Cancer, the Gate of Man, and enters under the planetary conditions that influence earth matters, receiving on the way the souls of the planets to whose influence it is exposed whilst manifesting in an earth body. As the soul descends it gathers sensation and earthy feelings from the celestial Leo, and long before its absolutely material birth obtains its first breath of matter. Herein is the mystery of the “two onyx stones enclosed in mountings of gold graven with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel which he put on the shoulders of the ephod that they should be stones for a memorial to the children of Israel, as the Lord commanded Moses.” As previously noted, on one onyx the names of six tribes were engraved, on the other the names of the remaining six, and each tribe was symbolized by a sign of the zodiac. The two onyx stones are the material emblems of the two Gates—the Gate of Cancer and the Gate of Capricorn—through which the self or soul enters and leaves the earth sphere, gathering first and throwing off afterwards, the earth elements from ethereal to gross, from gross to ethereal, as described by Macrobius.