[Footnote 6:  This has been translated so as to mean the portion of the island producing hyacinth stones ("la partie de l’isle ou se trouvent les jacinthes.”  THEVENOT).  But besides that I know of no Greek form of expression that admits of such expansion; this construction, if accepted, would be inconsistent with fact—­for the king alluded to held the north of the island, whereas the region producing gems is the south, and in it were also the “emporium,” and the harbour frequented by shipping and merchants.  I am disposed therefore to accept the term in its simple sense, and to believe that it refers to one particular jewel, for the possession of which the king of Ceylon enjoyed an enviable renown.  Cosmas, in the succeeding sentence, describes this wonderful gem as being deposited in a temple near the capital; and Hiouen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim, says that in the seventh century, a ruby was elevated on a spire surmounting a temple at Anarajapoora “dont l’eclat magnifique illumine tout le ciel.”—­Vie de Hiouen Thsang, lib. iv. p. 199; Voyages des Pelerins Bouddhistes, lib. xi. v. ii. p. 141.  MARCO POLO, in the thirteenth, century, says the “king of Ceylon is reputed to have the grandest ruby that was ever seen, a span in length, the thickness of a man’s arm; brilliant beyond description, and without a single flaw.  It has the appearance of a glowing fire, and its worth cannot be estimated in money.  The Grand Khan Kublai sent ambassadors to this monarch to offer for it the value of a city, but he would not part with it for all the treasures of the world, as it was a jewel handed down by his ancestors on the throne.”—­Trans.  MARSDEN, 4to. 1818.  It is most probable that the stone described by Marco Polo was not a ruby, but an amethyst, which is found in large crystals in Ceylon, and which modern mineralogists believe to be the “hyacinth” of the ancients. (DANA’S Mineralogy, vol. ii. p. 196.) CORSALI says it was a carbuncle (Ramusio, vol. i. p. 180); and JORDAN DE SEVERAC, about the year 1323, repeats the story of its being a ruby so large that it could not be grasped in the closed hand. (Recueil de Voy., Soc.  Geog.  Paris. vol. iv. p. 50.) If this resplendent object really exhibited the dimensions assigned to it, the probability is that it was not a gem at all, but one of those counterfeits of glass, in producing which STRABO relates that the artists of Alexandria attained the highest possible perfection (1. xvi. c. 2. sec. 25).  Its luminosity by night is of course a fiction, unless, indeed, like the emerald pillar in the temple of Hercules at Tyre, which HERODOTUS describes as “shining brightly by night,” it was a hollow cylinder into which a lamp could be introduced. Herod, ii. 44.