em, & quandoque declinat ad rubedinem, quae attrahit
paleas, & [fracturas] plantarum ad se, & propter hoc nominatur Karabe,
scilicet rapiens paleas, persice.... Karabe confert tremori cordis, quum
bibitur ex eo medietas aurei cum aqua frigida, & prohibet sputum sanguinis
valde.... Retinet vomitum, & prohibet materias malas a stomacho, & cum
mastiche confortat stomachum.... Retinet fluxum sanguinis ex matrice, &
ano, & fluxum ventris, & confert tenasmoni."

Scaliger in _De Subtilitate_, _Exercitatio_ ciii., s. 12, the passage
referred to by Gilbert says: "Succinum apud Arabas uocatur, Carabe: quod
princeps Aboali, rapiens paleas, interpretatur" (p. 163 _bis_, editio
Lutetiae, 1557).

^1 _Bijadah_ is classified by Muhammad B. Mansur (A.D. 1470) and by Ibn
al Mubarak (A.D. 1520) under "stones resembling ruby"; the Tansuk namah
describes it in a separate chapter. From the description it can be
identified with the almandine garnet, and the method of cutting this
stone _en cabochon_, with hollow back in order to display its colour
better is specially mentioned. The Tansuk namah only incidentally
refers to the electric property of the _bijadah_ in the chapter on
loadstone, but the other two treatises specially refer to it in their
description of the stone. The one has: "_Bijadah_ if rubbed until warm,
attracts straws and other light bodies just as amber does"; the other:
"_Bijadah_, if rubbed on the hair of the head, or on the beard,
attracts straws." Sururi, the lexicographer, who compiled a dictionary
in 1599, considers the _bijadah_ "a red ruby which possesses the
property of attraction." Other dictionaries do not mention the
attractive property, but some authors confound the stone with amber,
calling it _Kabruba_, the straw-robber. The _bijadah_ is not rubellite
(red tourmaline) for it is described in the lapidaries as common,
whereas rubellite (from Ceylon) has always been rare, and was unknown
in Persia in the thirteenth century.

[111] PAGE 47, LINE 21. Page 47, line 25. _Succinum seu
succum._--Dioscorides regarded amber as the inspissated juice of the poplar
tree. From the Frankfurt edition of 1543 (_De Medicinali materia, etc._)
edited by Ruellius, we have, liber i., p. 53:

_Populus._ Cap. XCIII.

"... Lachrymam populorum commemorant quae in Padum amnem defluat, durari,
ac coire in succinum, quod electrum vocant, alii chrysophorum. id att