At various times the word has been rendered tupase, tupace, topace, topas, thopas, topaze, topasie, topazius, topasius. In the traditional derivation of the word a mystery is concealed. Pliny says that the stone was found in an island difficult for mariners to locate on account of the fogs and mists surrounding it, and Marbodus seems to indicate the true topaz when he says: “_From seas remote the yellow topaz came, Found in the island of the self-same name._” The Island was known as Topazios, which owes its origin to the Greek word meaning “to divine, guess, conjecture.” The misty island is the celestial Scorpio which is accounted in astro-philosophy the death sign and the sign of the serpent, the wounder of the heel of man. It also concerns the goods of the departed, their abode in the world to come, etc., hence the Island of the Mists, the place of guess, conjecture or philosophical speculation which the traveller in the flesh can dimly see through the strange cloudy lights of the spirit. The name was originally given to the stone known to us as the Chrysolite which gem is now identified with the occult sign of the Fishes employed in the mysteries in ancient and modern times. The classification as we at present know it, is of very ancient date, and specimens of the modern topaz have been found adorned with various intagli of proven antiquity. Although it has been stated that Thomas A’ Becket wore a topaz ring, there is no doubt that Adam Sodbury, Abbot of Glastonbury, was correct when he says it was a peridot, for the peridot or chrysolite was the stone of the Churchmen and intimately associated with the mystic sign of Christianity—Pisces, the Fishes. The old Abbot wrote that “a gold ring in which was set the stone peritot (an old form of peridot) encircled the finger of our Martyr St. Thomas when he was killed by the swords of evil men.” At that time it is certain that the topaz and the peridot were the stones known as such today and as such they had been known for many centuries before. The Sanscrit word TOPAS, meaning heat, may well describe the topaz, the colour of which can be changed readily by heat, and which, under heat pressure and friction, exhibits strong electric phenomena.