Agate, ag'at, a variety of quartz peculiarly composed of many bands or layers of different colors. It is related to chalcedony, carnelian, and onyx. The moss agate owes its appearance to a peculiar moss-like stain of manganese or iron-oxide, spreading and branching like frost on a window pane. The name "mocha stone," sometimes applied to moss agates, is either due to the fact that those first used came from Mocha in Arabia, or it is a corruption of "moss agate." While the finest moss agates are obtained from India, they are found in many localities in the states of Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana. Very fine agates are found near Oldenburg in Germany. The best occur as rolled pebbles in the beds of streams. Kunz remarks that "no stone that is used in jewelry in the United States is cheaper, more beautiful, or more plentiful than the moss agate." Cloudy agates, stone agates, and the like, are names of other varieties. Agates make very attractive ornaments, and are used in rings and seals, in the handles of knives and forks, toilet articles, button hooks, and the like, or for beads, marbles, etc. On account of their hardness, agates make excellent watch jewels and bearings for pivots and scales. Gold wire is drawn through an agate eye. In Scotland agates are known as "Scotch pebbles." The British Museum possesses a peculiar Egyptian agate bearing an accidental likeness to the face of the poet Chaucer.