CARBUNCLE is a name applied in modern times to the various kinds of garnet employed by jewellers when cut en cabochon, that is, with a smooth convex surface, and the back either flat or hollowed out. On account of the deep red colour of most garnets it is necessary to adopt this kind of cutting, especially when the stones are of any considerable size, in order to exhibit their rich hues by the light passing through a comparatively thin stratum of the material. The carbuncle is frequently mentioned in the Bible, although it is impossible to define the precise stone referred to under that name in the Authorized Version of the Scriptures. The stone in the breast-plate of the High Priest, which is translated carbuncle (Exodus xxviii. 17), is in the original called Bareketh, literally meaning flashing, while again, in Isaiah liv. 12, the term Kadkod, equivalent to the glowing of fire, is also rendered by carbuncle. The carbunculus of Pliny appears to have included all the deep-red coloured stones which were suitable for jewellery and gems, such as the ruby and the spinel, as well as the various kinds of garnet. It is remarkable that among the varieties distinguished by classical writers were the lychnis or lamp stone, and the avθpaξ or live coal, both in common with the scriptural names indicating stones with a fiery glow. In the setting of carbuncles, a ruby-like glow is frequently communicated to the stones by a backing of coloured metallic foil which modifies their hue, a practice which is found to have prevailed in Roman times, tanta est in illis occasio artis, subditis per quoe translitéré cogantur. The finest carbuncles come from Pegu and Ceylon, and they are sometimes found in masses of such dimensions that cups measuring as much as one and a half or two inches in ...

ברקת, Exod. xxviii, 17; xxxix, 10; Ezek. xxviii, 13; and ἄνθραξ, Eccles. xxxii, 5; Tobit xiii, 17; a very elegant and rare gem, known to the ancients by the name ἄνθραξ, or _coal_, because, when held up before the sun, it appears like a piece of bright burning charcoal: the name _carbunculus_ has the same meaning. It was the third stone in the first row of the pectoral; and is mentioned among the glorious stones of which the new Jerusalem is figuratively said to be built. Bishop Lowth observes that the precious stones, mentioned Isa. liv, 11, 12, and Rev. xxi, 18, seem to be general images to express beauty, magnificence, purity, strength, and solidity, agreeably to the ideas of the eastern nations; and to have never been intended to be strictly scrutinized, and minutely and particularly explained, as if they had some precise moral or spiritual meaning. Tobit, in his prophecy of the final restoration of Israel, Tobit xii, 16,17, describes the new Jerusalem in the same oriental manner.