great blocks, which are conveyed to
considerable distances.

Excellent stone for building purposes was obtainable in most parts of
the Empire. Egypt furnished an inexhaustible supply of the best possible
granite; marbles of various kinds, compact sandstone, limestone, and
other useful sorts were widely diffused; and basalt was procurable from
some of the outlying ranges of Taurus. In the neighborhood of Nineveh,
and in much of the Mesopotamian region, there was abundance of grey
alabaster, and a better kind was quarried near Damascus. A gritty
silicious rock on the banks of the Euphrates, a little above Hit, was
suitable for mill-stones.

The gems furnished by the various provinces of the Empire are too
numerous for mention. They included, it must be remembered, all the
kinds which have already been enumerated among the mineral products of
the earlier Monarchies. Among them, a principal place must, one would
think, have been occupied by the turquoise--the gem, par excellence, of
modern Persia--although, strange to say, there is no certain mention
of it among the literary remains of antiquity. This lovely stone
is produced largely by the mines at Nishapur in the Elburz, and is
furnished also in less abundance and less beauty by a mine in Kerman,
and another near Khojend. It is noticed by an Arabian author as early as
the twelfth century of our era. A modern writer on gems supposes that it
is mentioned, though not named, by Theophrastus; but this view scarcely
seems to be tenable.

Among the gems of most value which the Empire certainly produced were
the emerald, the green ruby, the red ruby, the opal, the sapphire, the
amethyst, the carbuncle, the jasper, the lapis lazuli, the sard, the
agate, and the topaz. Emeralds were found in Egypt, Media, and Cyprus;
green rubies in Bactria; common or red rubies in Caria; opals in Egypt,
Cyprus, and Asia Minor; sapphires in Cyprus; amethysts also in Cyprus,
and moreover in Egypt, Galatia, and Armenia; carbuncles in Caria;
jaspers in Cyprus, Asia Minor, and Persia Proper; the lapis lazuli in
Cyprus, Egypt, and Media; the sard in Babylonia; the agate in Carmania,
Susiana, and Armenia; and the topaz or chrysoprase in Upper Egypt.

The tales which are told of enormous emeralds are undoubtedly fictions,
the material which passed for that precious substance being really in
these cases either green jasper or (more probably) glass. But lapis
lazuli and agate seem to have existed within