Note 103 — PART the SECOND.

The stone employed by the inhabitants of Otahitee for chissels and other tools, and even for ornaments to be hung in the ears, is by all appearances a kind of lapis nephriticus, which when transparent is pale-green, very soft, and employed for the latter purpose; but when opaque, it is of a deeper hue and harder. In South America the same kind of stone is employed by the natives for ornaments; and is much valued among the Topayos, or Tapuyas, a nation in the interior parts of Brasil, living along the river of that name, which falls into the river of Amazons. This stone is called tapuravas by the Galibis, a nation in Guiana; the Europeans settled in these parts of the world, call it the Amazon’s-stone; the European jewellers think it to be jade, a kind of precious stone of the same colour brought from the east. It is said that stones of this kind are found near the river St. Jago, forty miles from Quito, in the province of las Esmeraldas, in Peru. They grow more and more scarce, being much coveted by the nations of Guiana, the Tapuyas, and some other Indian nations, and likewise frequently bought up by the Europeans. Barrere Nouvelle Relation de la France equinoxiale, Paris 1743, and Condamine Relation abregée d’un Voyage fait en descendant la Riviere des Amazones, Paris 1746. F.