in natural history, called by our lapidaries aqua marina, is a pellucid gem of a bluish green colour, found in the East Indies and about the gold mines of Peru: we have also some from Sileisia, but what are brought from thence are often coloured crystals than real beryls; and when they are genuine, they are greatly inferior both in hardness and lustre to the oriental and Peruvian kinds.

The beryl, like most other gems, is met with both in the pebble and columnar form, but in the latter most frequently. In the pebble form it usually appears of a roundish but flatted figure, and commonly full of small flat faces, irregularly disposed. In the columnar or crystalline form it always consists of hexangular columns, terminated by hexangular pyramids. It never receives any admixture of colour into it, nor loses the blue and green, but has its genuine tinge in the degrees from a very deep and dull to the palest imaginable of the hue of sea-water.

The beryl, in its perfect state, approaches to the hardness of the garnet, but is often softer; and its size is from that of a small tare to that of a pea, a horse-bean, or even a walnut. It may be imitated by adding to 20 pounds of crystal-glass made without magnesia, six ounces of calcined brass or copper, and a quarter of an ounce of prepared zaffre.—The properties of the beryl were very wonderful in the opinion of the ancient naturalists; it kept people from falling into ambuscades of enemies, excited courage in the fearful, and cured diseases of the eyes and stomach. It does none of these things now; because people are not simple enough to believe it has the virtue to do them.

BERYL-crystal, in natural history, a species of what Dr Hill calls ellipomacrobyla, or imperfect crystals, is