molecular attraction. We find a mass, varying from the size of a walnut
to that of a man's head, occupying some larger vesicle or crevice of the
amygdaloid, and all the smaller vesicles around it, for an inch or two,
filled with what we may venture to term satellite heliotropes, some of
them as minute as grains of wild mustard, and all of them more or less
earthy, generally in proportion to their distance from the first formed
heliotrope in the middle. No one can see them in their place in the
rock, with the abundant green earth all around, and the chalcedony, in
its uncolored state, filling up so many of the larger cavities, without
acquiescing in the conclusion respecting the origin of the gem first
suggested by Werner, and afterwards adopted and illustrated by
M'Culloch. The heliotrope is merely a chalcedony, stained in the forming
with an infusion of green earth, as the colored waters in the
apothecary's window are stained by the infusions, vegetable and mineral,
from which they derive their ornamental character. The red mottlings
which so heighten the beauty of the stone occur in comparatively few of
the specimens of Scuir More. They are minute jasperous formations,
independent of the inclosing mass; and, from their resemblance to
streaks and spots of blood, suggest the name by which the heliotrope is
popularly known. I succeeded in making up, among the crags, a set of
specimens curiously illustrative of the origin of the gem. One specimen
consists of white, uncolored chalcedony; a second, of a rich
verdigris-hued green earth; a third, of chalcedony barely tinged with
green; a fourth, of chalcedony tinged just a shade more deeply; a fifth,
tinged more deeply still; a sixth, of a deep green on one side, and
scarce at all colored on the other; and a seventh, dark and richly
toned,--a true bloodstone,--thickly streaked and mottled with red
jasper. In the chemical process that rendered the Scuir More a mountain
of gems there were two deteriorating circumstances, which operated to
the disadvantage of its larger heliotropes: the green earth, as if
insufficiently stirred in the mixing, has gathered, in many of them,
into minute soft globules, like air-bubbles in glass, that render them
valueless for the purposes of the lapidary, by filling them all over
with little cavities; and in not a few of the others, an infiltration of
lime, that refused to incorporate with the chalcedonic mass, exists in
thin glassy films and veins,