I am not aware that any of these stones[3026] are still in existence at Chalcedon, the copper mines of that locality being now exhausted: but be this as it may, they were always the smallest in size and the most inferior in value. Brittle, and of a colour far from distinctly pronounced, they resembled in their tints the feathers that are seen in the tail of the peacock or on the necks of pigeons.[3027] More or less brilliant, too, according to the angle at which they were viewed, they presented an appearance like that of veins and scales. There was another defect, also, peculiar to these stones, known as “sarcion,” from the circumstance that a kind of flesh[3028] appeared to attach itself to the stone. The mountain near Chalcedon, where these stones were gathered, is still known by the name of “Smaragdites.” Juba informs us that a kind of smaragdus, known as “cloras,”[3029] is used in Arabia as an ornament for buildings, as also the stone which by the people of Egypt is called “alabastrites.” On the same authority, too, we learn that there are several varieties of the smaragdus in the neighbouring mountains, and that stones like those of Media are found in Mount Taygetus,[3030] as also in Sicily. CHAP. 19.—THE PRECIOUS STONE CALLED TANOS. CHALCOSMARAGDOS. Among the smaragdi is also included the precious stone known as “tanos.”[3031] It comes from Persia, and is of an unsightly green, and of a soiled colour within. There is the chalcosmaragdos[3032] also, a native of Cyprus, the face of which is mottled with coppery veins. Theophrastus relates that he had found it stated in the Egyptian histories, that a king of Babylon once sent to the king of Egypt a smaragdus[3033] four cubits in length by three in breadth. He informs us, also, that in a temple of Jupiter in Egypt there was an obelisk made of four smaragdi, forty cubits in length, and four in breadth at one extremity, and two at the other. He says, too, that at the period at which he wrote, there was in the Temple of Hercules at Tyrus a large column made of a single smaragdus;[3034] though very possibly it might only be pseudo-smaragdus, a kind of stone not uncommonly found in Cyprus, where a block had been discovered, composed, one half of smaragdus, and one half of jasper,[3035] and the liquid in which had not as yet been entirely transformed. Apion, surnamed “Plistonices,”[3036] has left a very recent statement, that there was still in existence, in his time, in the Labyrinth of Egypt, a colossal statue of Serapis made of a single smaragdus, nine cubits in height. CHAP. 20.—BERYLS: EIGHT VARIETIES OF THEM. DEFECTS IN BERYLS.