Huge columns carved out of single masses of marble, and inlaid from top to bottom with a hundred intricate figures wrought in costly verde antique; pulpits of the same rich materials, whose draperies hung down in many a pictured fold, the stony fabric counterfeiting the delicate work of the loom; the grand altar brilliant with polished facings and balustrades of oriental agate, jasper, verde antique, and other precious stones, whose names, even, we seldom hear-- and slabs of priceless lapis lazuli lavished every where as recklessly as if the church had owned a quarry of it.
Red porphyry-- verde antique--jasper--oriental agate--alabaster--mother-of-pearl-- chalcedony--red coral--lapis lazuli! All the vast walls are made wholly of these precious stones, worked in, and in and in together in elaborate pattern s and figures, and polished till they glow like great mirrors with the pictured splendors reflected from the dome overhead.
They were sombre blues, opaque like a delicately carved bowl in lapis
lazuli, and yet with a quivering lustre that suggested the palpitation of mysterious life; there were purples, horrible like raw and putrid flesh, and yet with a glowing, sensual passion that called up vague memories of the Roman Empire of Heliogabalus; there were reds, shrill like the berries of holly -- one thought of Christmas in England, and the snow, the good cheer, and the pleasure of children -- and yet by some magic softened till they had the swooning tenderness of a dove's breast; there were deep yellows that died with an unnatural passion into a green as fragrant as the spring and as pure as the sparkling water of a mountain brook.
The bare vaulting of trees along the Mall was ceiled with lapis
lazuli, and arched above snow that shone like splintered crystals.
But the walls were made of screens of marble tracery--beautiful milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis
lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it shone through the open work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery.
Malik Saleem said that Pakistan has enormous wealth of expensive gems such as ruby, emerald, tourmaline, garnet, topaz, peridot, aquamarine, spinel, pargasite, diopside, moonstone, pink topaz, sapphire, zircon, feldspar, agate, serpentine jade, epidote, pink beryl (morganite), purple beryl, sphene, zoisite, lapis
lazuli, turquoise, and kunzite etc.
Malik Shahid informed that Pakistan has enormous wealth of expensive gems such as ruby, emerald, tourmaline, garnet, topaz, peridot, aquamarine, spinel, pargasite, diopside, moonstone, pink topaz, sapphire, zircon, feldspar, agate, serpentine jade, epidote, pink beryl (morganite), purple beryl, sphene, zoisite, lapis
lazuli, turquoise and kunzite etc and Pakistan could earn huge foreign exchange from exports of gems and jewelry.
WILLIAM BUICK made the perfect return to the saddle after an absence of 12 weeks with victory aboard
Lazuli at Newmarket last night.
NEWMARKET: 5.20 Di Matteo, 5.50 Chicago Doll, 6.25
Lazuli, 7.00 Frontispiece, 7.30 Club Tropicana, 8.00 Loving Glance, 8.30 Tawny Port.
Another example is the Lapis
Lazuli route, which runs from Afghanistan to Turkey and further to Europe.
Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are participants of the Lapis
Lazuli international transit and transport corridor connecting Afghanistan with Georgia, Turkey and European countries.
lazuli - an azure blue semiprecious stone