Chrysoberyl

[Gr. chrysos, gold, and beryllos, a beryl.] ( Min. ) An aluminate of glucina, composed of 80-2 alumina and 19-8 glucina. It occurs in small rounded ma es about the size of a pea, but sometimes crystallized in eight-sided prisms with six-sided summits which are transparent or translucent, very hard, and of various tints of greenish-yellow, sometimes with a bluish opalescence internally. It is principally obtained in Brazil and Ceylon from the alluvial deposits of the rivers. Though not much employed in jewelry, the C. sometimes forms a beautiful stone almost equal in appearance to the yellow diamond. The C. of the ancients was a different stone, probably the Chrysoprase of the moderns.