in natural history, the name of a semi-pellucid gem.

This is a very singular stone, and of a very great cen-

cealed beauty: our lapidaries, when they meet with it, call it by the name of the black agate. It is of an extremely close, compact, and firm texture, of a smooth and equal surface, and in shape very irregular, being sometimes round, sometimes oblong, and often flat; in size it seldom exceeds two inches. It appears, on a common inspection, to be of a fine deep black; but held up against the sun, or the light of a candle, it is an elegant red, clouded by a quantity of subtle black earth. We have it from the East Indies.

FRASCIUM, in botany, a genus of the didynamia gymnospermae clas. The berries are four, each containing one seed. There are two species, none of them natives of Britain.