Laotzu and Confucius were out in the early morning poling their skow on the lake. It was still foggy. There were cries of birds. The two friends were going to gather reeds to replace the thatched roof of their house.
As they poled along they discussed the legendary Onyx stone. Confucius said that this stone, which conferred long life on him who possessed it, was perfectly round and its mass was 1/131 of a Taoist ounce. The stone appeared to be a layered chalcedony that changed colors as you looked.
Laotzu said there was more to the story. There were twentythree other gems besides the Onyx. The first was one twelfth the mass of an atom of carbon, and each of the others was tenfold more massive than the one before it. The largest was 1023 times more massive than the first, and this was the Great Onyx believed to confer long life.
The skow glided out of the fog, into a patch of clear chilly air. There was no wind and the smooth water was the color of chalcedony — grey, blue, changing. The two men quietly rested their poles athwart the boat. Their breath, warmer than the surrounding air, rose in two clouds straight up.
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Copyright © 2002 Leonard Cottrell. All rights reserved.
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Webster's: onyx (from the Greek word for claw) a translucent chalcedony in parallel layers of different colors.
The Taoist ounce (in metric terms 21.73 gram) is a thousandth of the mass unit used in the Forbidden City. One twelfth the mass of a carbon-12 atom is 1/131 × 10-23 ounce. Since air molecules' average molecular weight is 29, their mass is 29/131×10-23 ounce.