Note 219 — Chapter IX · —Description of India

Pliny, in the latter part of his 37th book, treats of the various kinds of precious stones found in India, and of the uses to which they are there applied. In some of the other books incidental notices of them are also to be met with, while his 9th book is full of details about the pearl. From Strabo (II. iii. 4) we learn that an adventurer, Eudoxos of Kyzikos, who had been sent by Ptolemy Physkôn, king of Egypt, to India, returned thence, bringing back with him precious stones, some of which the Indians collect from among the pebbles of the river, and others of which they dig out of the earth. In his 15th book he states that India produces precious stones, as crystals, carbuncles of all kinds, and pearls. In Ptolemy’s Geography of India, and in the Periplûs of the Erythraean Sea mention is made of the diamond, beryl, onyx, carnelian, hyacinth, and sapphire as precious stones of India. They mention also various pearl fisheries existing in and near India. Arrian states in his Indika (c. 8) that the pearl in India is worth thrice its weight in refined gold, and that it was called in the Indian tongue Margarita. This, which is also its classical name, may represent either the Sanskrit manjari, or the Persian marwarîd.