gems, jade, Fischer-Book

Peschel presents a comprehensive history of the European age of geographical discovery, tracing the expansion of geographical knowledge from medieval exploration through the Portuguese voyages around Africa, Columbus and the discovery of the Americas, and subsequent Spanish and Portuguese exploration of the New World and Asia. Drawing critically on early travel narratives, chronicles, maps, and archival sources, he examines the motives, routes, achievements, and consequences of the principal voyages and the changing European conception of world geography. Of relevance to gemological history are discussions of the search for valuable commodities—including gold, pearls, precious stones, and other luxury products—which provided powerful incentives for exploration and shaped early European accounts of Africa, Asia, and the Americas. The work is particularly useful for placing early reports of gem resources and trade within the broader economic and geographical context of the Age of Discovery.

gems, jade, Mesoamerican jade, Guatemala jade, jadeite, fei cui, Mayan jade, Costa Rica, Fischer-Book

Squier presents an extensive geographical, historical, political, and economic survey of Central America, principally Guatemala, Honduras, San Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, drawing on his diplomatic service, travels, earlier publications, and contemporary documentary sources. He describes the region’s physical geography, population, indigenous peoples, antiquities, agriculture, commerce, transportation, and natural resources, with particular attention to routes proposed for inter-oceanic communication. Of gemological and mineralogical interest are his accounts of mines and mineral resources and his descriptions of pre-Columbian artifacts and indigenous materials, including objects fashioned from valued green stones. The volume provides an important mid-nineteenth-century synthesis of contemporary knowledge of Central America and is useful for tracing early reports of its mineral resources and archaeological stone objects.

corundum, history.1, quality.10, India.12, Sri Lanka.12, Burma.12, geology.11, gems, Indian lapidary

Edited by R.H. Major for the Hakluyt Society, this volume brings together four fifteenth-century narratives describing travel in India and other parts of Asia: the journeys of the Persian ambassador ʿAbd al-Razzāq, the Venetian traveller Niccolò de’ Conti, the Russian merchant Afanasy Nikitin, and the Genoese merchant Hieronimo di Santo Stefano. Their accounts provide contemporary information on Indian Ocean trade, ports, cities, political courts, customs, commodities, and the wealth of South and Central Asia. Of particular gemological importance are descriptions of diamonds, rubies, pearls, and other precious stones, their sources and markets, and the prominent role of gems and jewelry in Asian courts and long-distance commerce. The accounts of Vijayanagara and the trading networks linking India with Persia, Southeast Asia, and the Mediterranean are especially valuable for reconstructing the fifteenth-century gem trade. Major’s edition made these early travel narratives readily accessible in English and remains an important source for the history of Asian commerce and precious stones.

gems, jade, Fischer-Book

Compiled by Francis L. Hawks from the journals and official records of Commodore Matthew C. Perry and his officers, this volume presents the narrative of the United States naval expedition to Japan in 1852–1854 that resulted in the Convention of Kanagawa and the opening of Japanese ports to American vessels (at gunpoint; so much for the 'rule of law'). It describes the expedition’s voyages through the China Seas and Japan, diplomatic negotiations, geography, natural history, commerce, customs, industries, and material culture, with numerous illustrations and maps. Of mineralogical and gemological interest are observations on Japanese mineral resources, manufactured objects, ornaments, and the stones and other natural materials employed in decorative and practical arts. The work is also valuable for its detailed contemporary documentation of Japanese crafts and commodities immediately before the rapid expansion of Western contact during the Meiji era.

corundum, history.1, gems

Sinkankas: The translation is generally conceded to be superior to Holland’s and is further enriched by abundant, discerning, and helpful footnotes. This edition was kept in print in various bindings as late as 1893, with full sets dated from 1856 to 1893. Primarily of interest to the gemologist are pages 305–85 and 386–468, which treat building stones and gemstones, respectively, in the sixth volume (Books XXXVI and XXXVII). The first book deals with building stones and other matters, sometimes classed with gemstones, while gemstones proper are fully treated in the last book, the contents of which are analyzed and explained in detail by Sidney Henry Ball in his A Roman Book on Precious Stones (1950), which see. However, Ball’s work is based on the Holland translation rather than the present one, and the reader desiring to explore more fully the material presented in Pliny’s gemological dissertations should compare both. Here, as in his other books, Pliny accumulated all he could find about the nature, sources, attributes, and uses of gemstones, with data and tales ranging from fabulous anecdotes and superstitions to the cold, hard facts of science. It is also here that one finds the curious names for many gemstones, borrowed more or less from earlier writers and repeated by writers after Pliny well into the seventeenth century. The legacy of such names in the post-Plinian lapidaries is usefully discussed by Frank Dawson Adams in his Birth and Development of the Geological Sciences (1938, pp. 143ff), who also attempts to group and correlate the names with known gemstones or other mineral and non-mineral substances classed as gemstones by earlier writers. The problem of such identification is also addressed by Dorothy Wyckoff in her Albertus Magnus: Book of Minerals (1967, esp. pp. 286–92), which see. Neither Philemon Holland nor John Bostock and Henry Thomas Riley were trained in the earth sciences, and for this reason the interpretations of gemstones and minerals provided by them should be compared to those of Ball, Adams, and Wyckoff, all trained in the earth sciences. See also the commentaries in Rackham’s edition of Pliny in a later English translation below.

corundum, Thailand.12, gems

Pallegoix’s Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam is a wide-ranging account of Siam by the French missionary Jean-Baptiste Pallegoix, covering its geography, population, government, religion, customs, commerce, agriculture, and natural products. Drawing on his long residence in the country and knowledge of the Thai language, Pallegoix provides one of the more substantial European descriptions of mid-nineteenth-century Siam. Of particular gemological interest, pp. 117–121 treat the kingdom’s mineral resources and precious stones, including accounts of gemstones obtained in Siam and the localities or regions associated with them. These passages are useful early evidence for European knowledge of the Siamese gem trade and mineral resources before the major development of the ruby and sapphire deposits of eastern Siam later in the nineteenth century.

gems, dictionary, Malay, etymology, word history, translation

Crawfurd combines a comparative study of Malay and neighboring languages with a practical grammar and dictionaries in both Malay–English and English–Malay directions. The preliminary dissertation examines linguistic relationships across the Malay Archipelago and beyond, using vocabulary comparisons and discussions of borrowed words to investigate cultural contacts. The grammar treats writing, pronunciation, parts of speech, syntax, idioms, dialects and literature. For gemological research, the dictionaries preserve nineteenth-century terminology for stones and related materials, including intan, defined as diamond. Their value lies chiefly in documenting names, meanings and linguistic associations rather than providing mineralogical descriptions or accounts of gemstone deposits.

gems, jade, Mesoamerican jade, Guatemala jade, jadeite, fei cui, Mayan jade, Costa Rica, Fischer-Book

This two-volume work by American diplomat and archaeologist Ephraim George Squier describes Nicaragua’s geography, peoples, natural history, antiquities, economy, and transportation routes, based largely on observations made while he served as U.S. chargé d’affaires in Central America. Particular attention is given to the proposed inter-oceanic canal across Nicaragua, including the country’s rivers, lakes, volcanoes, and possible routes between the Atlantic and Pacific. Of gemological and archaeological interest are Squier’s discussions and illustrations of pre-Columbian antiquities, including carved stone objects and ornaments, and his observations on indigenous materials and mineral resources. The work is an important early source for the archaeology and ethnography of Nicaragua and for nineteenth-century Western understanding of the material cultures of Central America.

gems, jade, pyroxene jade, jadeite, fei cui, omphacite, kosmochlor, Mesoamerica, Guatemala, Olmec, Maya, Fischer-Book, Mexico

A major early study of the archaeology and antiquities of Peru, describing the monuments, burials, artifacts, customs, religion, and material culture of the pre-Columbian peoples of the Andes. Rivero and Tschudi draw upon archaeological remains, historical sources, and collections of artifacts to discuss Inca and earlier Peruvian civilizations, with illustrations of monuments and objects. Of particular gemological interest are discussions of objects fashioned from stone and precious materials, personal ornaments, and the working and cultural use of minerals and metals in ancient Peru.

corundum, padparadscha, Sri Lanka.12, nomenclature, gems

A multilingual mineralogical dictionary intended to correlate mineral names across different European and other languages. Keferstein arranges mineral terminology comparatively, providing equivalent names and synonyms used by different authors and linguistic traditions, thereby helping readers navigate the often inconsistent nomenclature of nineteenth-century mineralogy. The work is particularly useful for historical gemological research because it preserves variant names for gemstones, ornamental stones, and related minerals and helps trace how mineral terms were translated and understood across languages.