in natural history, the name of a semipellucid gem. This is a very singular stone, and of a very great concealed 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 subtile black earth. We have it from the East Indies.