or YELLOWISH-GREEN TOPAZ; a precious stone of a grass green colour, found in the East Indies, Brazil, Bohemia, Saxony, Spain, in Auvergne and Bourbon in France, and in Derbyshire in England. Some are likewise found with volcanic lavas, as in the Vévarais, where some large lumps have been seen of 20 or 30 pounds weight; but it is remarkable, that some of these chrysolites are partly decomposed into an argillaceous substance. All chrysolites, however, are far from being of the same kind. The oriental is the same with the peridot, and differs only by its green hue from the sapphires, topazes, and rubies of the same denomination. This becomes electric by being rubbed; has a prismatic form of six, or sometimes of five striated faces; and does not lose its colour or transparency in the fire, which the common chrysolite often does becoming either opaque, or melting entirely in a strong heat. The instant it melts, it emits a phosphoric light like the basis of alum and gypseous spar: with borax it produces a thin colourless glass. Its specific gravity is between 3.680 and 3.750; according to Briffon it is 2.7821, or 2.6923; and that of the Spanish chrysolite 3.0989.

The substance of this precious stone is lamellated in the direction of the axis of its primitive form: but the chrysolite from Saxony is foliated in a perpendicular direction to the same axis. The chrysolite of the ancients was the same gem which is now called topaz, and the name itself indicates that it ought to be so. Pliny says that the colour of the chrysolite is yellow like gold.