"The properties of attraction and repulsion are possessed by other substances than loadstone, for instance, by amber and bîjâdah,^1 which attract straws, feathers, etc., and of many other bodies, it can be said that they possess the power of attraction. There is also a stone which attracts gold; it has a pure yellow colour. There is also a stone which attracts silver from distances of three or two yards. There are also the stone which attracts tin, very hard, and smelling like asafoetida, the stone attracting hair, the stone attracting meat, etc., but, latterly, no one has seen these stones: no proof, however, that they do not exist."
Avicenna (Ibn Sinâ) gives the following under the heading of _Karabe_ (see _Canona Medicinæ_, Giunta edition, Venet., 1608, lib. ii., cap. 371, p. 336):
"Karabe quid est? Gumma sicut sandaraca, tendens ad citrinitatem, & albedinem, & peruietatem, & quandoque declinat ad rubedinem, quæ attrahit paleas, & [fracturas] plantarum ad se, & propter hoc nominatur Karabe, scilicet rapiens paleas, persicè.... Karabe confert tremori cordis, quum bibitur ex eo medietas aurei cum aqua frigida, & prohibet sputum sanguinis valde.... Retinet vomitum, & prohibet materias malas a stomacho, & cum mastiche confortat stomachum.... Retinet fluxum sanguinis ex matrice, & ano, & fluxum ventris, & confert tenasmoni."
Scaliger in _De Subtilitate_, _Exercitatio_ ciii., § 12, the passage referred to by Gilbert says: "Succinum apud Arabas uocatur, Carabe: quod princeps Aboali, rapiens paleas, interpretatur" (p. 163 _bis_, editio Lutetiæ, 1557).
^1 _Bîjâdah_ is classified by Muhammad B. Mansûr (A.D. 1470) and by Ibn al Mubârak (A.D. 1520) under "stones resembling ruby"; the Tansûk nâmah describes it in a separate chapter. From the description it can be identified with the almandine garnet, and the method of cutting this stone _en cabochon_, with hollow back in order to display its colour better is specially mentioned. The Tansûk nâmah only incidentally refers to the electric property of the _bîjâdah_ in the chapter on loadstone, but the other two treatises specially refer to it in their description of the stone. The one has: "_Bîjâdah_ if rubbed until warm, attracts straws and other light bodies just as amber does"; the other: "_Bîjâdah_, if rubbed on the hair of the head, or on the beard, attracts straws." Surûri, the lexicographer, who compiled a dictionary in 1599, considers the _bîjâdah_ "a red ruby which possesses the property of attraction." Other dictionaries do not mention the attractive property, but some authors confound the stone with amber, calling it _Kâbrubâ_, the straw-robber. The _bîjâdah_ is not rubellite (red tourmaline) for it is described in the lapidaries as common, whereas rubellite (from Ceylon) has always been rare, and was unknown in Persia in the thirteenth century.