Onycha

ONYCHA, or Onyx. This Word is found in two different Senses in Scripture. It is put for the odoriferous Nail or Shell, and for the Stone named Onyx. According to the Force of the Etymology, Onyx signifies a Nail of the Finger or Toe. The Hebrew Word Shecheleth¹, which St. Jerome after the Seventy translates by the aromatick Shell or Nail, is by others understood of Laudanum, or Bdellium. But the greatest Part of Commentators explain it by the Onyx, or the odoriferous Shell, which is a Shell like to that of the Shellfish called Purpura. The Onyx is fished for in watry Places of the Indies, where grows the Spica Nardi, which is the Food of this Fish, and what makes its Shell so aromatick. They go to gather these Shells when the Heat has dried up the Marshes. The best Onyx is found in the Red-Sea, and is white and large. The Babylonian is black and smaller. This is what Dioscorides says of it.

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