Notes on Bowenite or Pseudo-Jade from Afghanistan

Extract

A stone called sang-i-yashm in Persian, which has some points of resemblance to jade and is sometimes mistaken for it, is utilised at Bhera, in the Shahpur District of the Punjab, for the manufacture of dagger hilts, knife handles, caskets, amulets, and other articles. It is also found useful in mosaic work.

I am indebted to Mr. J. Wilson, B.C.S., Deputy Commissioner of the Shahpur District, for several specimens of the stone in the unworked state, and for information regarding its place of origin. Other specimens I obtained from my son Lieut. A. H. McMahon, Assistant Commissioner, Kohat.

The sang-i-yashm is a hard species of serpentine which seems to correspond very closely to that named bowenite, after Dr. Bowen, who, in 1822, published an analysis of a mineral from Smithfield, R.I., which up to that date had been called nephrite.