an artificer who cuts precious stones.

The art of cutting precious stones is of great antiquity. The French have carried this art to a very great perfection, but not in any degree superior to the British.

There are various machines employed in the cutting of precious stones, according to their quality. The diamond, which is extremely hard, is cut on a wheel of soft steel, turned by a mill, with diamond dust, tempered with olive oil, which also serves to polish it.

The oriental ruby, sapphire, and topaz, are cut on a copper wheel with diamond dust tempered with olive oil, and are polished on another copper wheel with tripoli and water. The hyacinth, emerald, amethyst, garnets, agates, and other stones not of an equal degree of hardness with the other, are cut on a leaden wheel with flint and water, and polished on a tin wheel with tripoli. The turquoises of the old and new rock, girasol, and opal, are cut and polished on a wooden wheel with tripoli also.

The lapidaries of Paris have been a corporation since the year 1290. It is governed by four jurats, who superintend their rights and privileges, visit the master workmen, take care of the masterpiece of workmanship, bind apprentices, and administer the freedom.

Lapidary is also used for a virtuoso skilled in the nature, kinds, &c. of precious stones; or a merchant who deals in them.

Lapidary Style, denotes the style proper for monumental or other inscriptions.

This is a kind of medium between prose and verse; the jejune and the brilliant are here equally to be avoided. Cicero has prescribed the rules of it: Accedit opertet oratio varia, vehemens, plena spiritus. Omnium sententiarum gravitate, omnium verborum ponderibus, est utendum.

The lapidary style, which was lost with the ancient monuments, has been retrieved at the beginning of this age by Count Emanuel Tezoro: it is now used various ways at the beginning of books; and even epistles dedicatory are composed in it, of which we have no example among the ancients.

Lapidescient, anything which has the faculty of petrifying, or turning bodies to a stony nature. The older naturalists speak of a lapidescient principle, a lapidescient spirit, a lapidescient juice, &c.