Illustrations
| COLOR PLATES | |
| PAGE | |
|---|---|
| Model of a Hindu Lady, Illustrating the Mode of Wearing Jewelry in North India | [Frontispiece]. |
| Jade Bell of the K’ien-lung Period (1731–1795) | [143] |
| 1, 1½. Emerald that Belonged to the Deposed Sultan of Turkey. 2. Almandite Garnet. 3. Sardonyx Idol-eye of a Babylonian Bull. 4. Aquamarine Seal | [159] |
| Illustrating Precious Stones and Minerals Used for Seals in Ancient Assyria and Babylonia | [242] |
| Perforated Jade Disk Called Ts’ang Pi, a Chinese Symbol of the Deity Heaven (T’ien) | [302] |
| Turquoise Incrusted Objects, Probably Amulets, Found at Pueblo Bonito, New Mexico | [353] |
| Hilt of Jewelled Sword Given by the Greeks of the United States on Easter Day, 1913, to the Crown Prince of Greece, Later King Constantine XII | [370] |
| DOUBLETONES | |
| Indian Medicine-men | [18] |
| Chalcedony and Agate Pebbles from Pescadero Beach, San Mateo County, California | [30] |
| Pebble Beach, Redondo, Los Angeles County, California | [30] |
| Hindu Wearing a Collection of Ancestral Pebbles as Amulets | [37] |
| Killing a Dragon to Extract Its Precious Stone | [45] |
| Naturally Marked Stone | [45] |
| A Simple Apparatus for Illustrating the Electric Properties of the Tourmaline | [54] |
| Necklace of Faceted Amber Beads | [63] |
| Vignette from the “Lapidario de Alfonso X, Codice Original” | [69] |
| The “Madonna Di Foligno,” by Raphael | [73] |
| The Kaaba at Mecca | [84] |
| “Ahnighito,” the Great Cape York Meteorite, Weighing More than 36½ Tons | [96] |
| “The Woman,” Cape York Meteorite | [97] |
| “The Dog,” Cape York Meteorite | [98] |
| Two Views of the Willamette Meteorite Now in the American Museum of Natural History, New York City | [99] |
| Flint Amulets of the Predynastic Period, Egypt | [108] |
| The “Ortus Sanitatis” of Johannis De Cuba, Published at Strassburg in 1483 | [122] |
| Famous Pearl Necklace of the Unfortunate Empress Carlotta, Widow of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico | [126] |
| Jade Tongue Amulets for the Dead. Chinese | [139] |
| Frontispiece of Museum Wormianum | [141] |
| Ancient Persian Relic Known as the “Cup of Chosroes” | [154] |
| Bezoars of Emperor Rudolph II, Now in the Hofmuseum, Vienna | [216] |
| Frontispiece and Title-page of Francesco Redi’s “Experimenta Naturalia,” Amsterdam 1675, and Two Specimen Pages of This Treatise | [232] |
| Forms of Tabasheer | [233] |
| Specimens of Tabasheer | [235] |
| Zodiac Mohurs, Coined by the Mogul Sovereign Shah Jehan, about 1628 | [246] |
| The Medieval Conception of the Cosmos, the Successive Spheres of the Planets, Including the Sun, and Beyond These the Crystalline Heaven and the Empyrean | [248] |
| The Angel Raphael Refusing the Gifts Offered by Tobit | [250] |
| Santa Barbara | [258] |
| Bloodstone Medallion, Showing the Santa Casa of Loreto Carried by Angels to Dalmatia from Galilee | [267] |
| Chinese Jade Amulets for the Dead | [283] |
| La Madonna Della Salute, by Ottaviano Nelli | [287] |
| Ceremony Annually Observed in the Mogul Empire of Weighing the Sovereign Against Precious Metals, Jewels and Other Valuable Objects, Which Were Distributed as Gifts | [301] |
| The Sacred Well of Chichen Itzá | [307] |
| Carved and Worked Stones from the Sacred Well at Chichen Itzá, Yucatan, Mexico | [308] |
| Eye-Agates | [315] |
| Types of Egyptian Seals and Scarabs in the Murch Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York | [316] |
| Colossal Scarab in Black Granite, British Museum | [320] |
| A Medieval Spell | [328] |
| From a Portrait of Queen Elizabeth | [337] |
| Complete View of the Ancient Jade Girdle-Pendant (From Ku Yü T’u P’u) | [341] |
| Tibetan Woman with Complete Jewelry | [343] |
| “The Light of the East” | [345] |
| Indian Medicine-man | [354] |
| Hei-Tiki Amulets of New Zealand | [362] |
| Jewelled Sword Given by the Greeks of the United States, on Easter Day, 1913, to Crown Prince Constantine, Later King Constantine XII of Greece. Top of Scabbard, Showing Didrachm of Alexander the Great | [373] |
| Side View of Hilt | [373] |
| “The Legend of the Moonstone,” Autographed for This Work by the Author of the Poem, Dr. Edward Forrester Sutton | [386] |
| Cleopatra Dissolving Her Priceless Pearl at the Banquet to Mark Antony | [394] |
| LINE CUTS | |
| Title-page of One of the Earliest Treatises on Meteorites | [91] |
| Types of Ceraunia or “Thunder-stones” | [111] |
| Interior of Fifteenth Century Pharmacy | [122] |
| Extracting Toad-stone | [162] |
| Toad-stones. Natural Concretions of Claystone and Limonite | [163] |
| Types of Cheloniæ (Tortoise-stones). Natural Concretions | [171] |
| Chelidonius, or “Swallow-stones” | [172] |
| Ætites | [175] |
| Extracting an Alectorius | [179] |
| Alectorius | [180] |
| Lapis Manati | [182] |
| Lapis Malacensis, Stone of the Hedgehog or Porcupine | [183] |
| Lapis Judaicus. Pentremite Heads | [187] |
| Glossopetræ. Fossil Shark’s Teeth | [188] |
| Belemnites. Fossilized Bony End of Extinct Cuttle-fish | [191] |
| Brontia. Fossil Sea-urchins | [193] |
| Trochites } Fossil } Crinoid Enastros } Stems | [194] |
| Bucardites Triplex | [195] |
| Types of Ombria (Fossil Sea-urchins) | [196] |
| Cornu Ammonis (Fossil Nautilus) | [197] |
| Specimens of Astroites (Asteria), or Fossil Coral | [199] |
| Application of a Bezoar to Cure a Victim of Poisoning | [202] |
| Monkey Bezoar | [204] |
| 1. Hedge-hogstone from Malacca. 2, 3. Spurious Stones of this Type Manufactured in Ceylon. | [205] |
| Calculi Taken from Bladder of Pope Pius V | [220] |
| Types of the Ovum Anguinum. Echinites (Sea-urchins) | [222] |
| Cobra de Capello | [236] |
| Canadian Indian Medicine-man | [357] |
| The Birth of the Opal | [374] |
| East Indian Baroque Pearl | [392] |
The Magic of Jewels and Charms
I
Magic Stones and Electric Gems
While the precious and semi-precious stones were often worn as amulets or talismans, the belief in the magic quality of mineral substances was not confined to them, but was also held in regard to large stone masses of peculiar form, or having strange markings or indentations; moreover, many small stones, possessing neither worth nor beauty, were thought to exert a certain magical influence upon natural phenomena. An occult power of this sort was also attributed by tradition to some mythical stones, the origin of this fancy being frequently explicable by the quality really inherent in some known mineral bearing a designation closely similar to that bestowed upon the imaginary stone.
To certain stones has been attributed the power to produce musical tones, the most famous example being the so-called “Vocal Memnon” of Thebes. This colossal statue was said to emit a melodious sound when the sun rose, and according to Greek legend this sound was a greeting given by Memnon to his mother, the Dawn. It appears, however, that the statue was a respecter of persons, for when the Emperor Hadrian presented himself before it, he is said to have heard the sound three times, whereas common mortals heard it but once, or at most twice, while occasionally the statue withheld its greeting altogether. A modern traveller relates a personal experience that may cast a side-light upon this matter. His visit to Thebes was made in the evening, but a fellah who was standing near the statue asked him whether he wished to hear the musical sound. Of course the reply was in the affirmative. Thereupon the man climbed up the side of the colossal figure and hid himself behind the elbow. In a moment sharp metallic sounds became audible; not a single sound, but several in succession. Knowing from their quality that they could not proceed from the stone, the traveller asked his donkey-boy for an explanation and was told that the man was striking an iron bar. In ancient times the priests probably performed this or a similar trick in a much more skilful way than did the poor fellah, so that the mystery of the statue was carefully guarded.[[1]]
The river Hydaspes was said to furnish a “musical stone.” When the moon was waxing, this stone gave forth a melodious sound.[[2]] This should be understood in the sense that when the stone was struck at that season the sound was different from what it was at other times—a fanciful idea based on some supposed sympathy between the stone and the moon. As moonstones are rarely larger than a silver dollar, they would not emit a sound upon being struck, and it is probably a rock known as “chinkstone” (phonolite) that is referred to, an igneous rock, very hard and resonant, that has been found in elongated and flat pebbles of large size; they ring with the resonance of bells when struck. A sonorous stone at Megara is reported by Pausanias[[3]]; when struck, it emitted the sound of the chord of a lyre. This was explained by the tale that, while helping Alcathous to build the walls of his city, the god Apollo had rested his lyre on the stone.
The term sarcophagus is to us so clear and precise in its significance, that we do not stop to think that its etymology reveals it as literally meaning body-devourer. Tradition taught that a stone of this type was to be found near Assos in Lycia, Asia Minor, and also in some parts of the Orient. If attached to the body of a living person it would eat away the flesh. Another type, already noted by Theophrastus in the third century B.C., had the power of petrifying any object placed within receptacles made from it. If a dead person were buried in a “sarcophagus” of this material the body would not be consumed, but would, on the contrary, be turned to stone, even the shoes of the corpse and any utensils buried with it, would undergo a like wonderful change. Possibly actual observations of changes in the bodies of those long buried, their partial disintegration in some cases, and their hardening in others, may have given rise to the fancy that the stone receptacle in which they had reposed was directly the cause of this, whether it implied destruction or petrifaction.[[4]]
Of the substance named galactite, Pliny gives some details. He states that it came from the Nile, was of the color and had the odor of milk, and when moistened and scraped produced a juice resembling milk. The liquid derived from the galactite when taken as a potion by nurses was said to increase the flow of milk. If a galactite were bound to a child’s arm the effect was to promote the secretion of saliva. To these favorable effects must be added an unfavorable one, namely, loss of memory, which was said to befall occasionally those who wore the stone. A kind of “emerald with white veinings” was sometimes called galactite, and another variety had alternate red and white stripes or veins.[[5]] Perhaps this “emerald” was a variety of jade, or a banded jasper.
This so-called galactite, which enjoyed such an extraordinary reputation in ancient and medieval times, is not, properly speaking, a stone, but a nitrate of lime. The strange and famous relics of the Virgin preserved in many old churches and called “the Virgin’s milk,” were merely solutions of this nitrate. Possibly pieces of this so-called galactite were sometimes found by pilgrims in the grotto of Bethlehem, and were supposed to be petrified milk.[[6]] As everything in this sacred spot was regarded as connected in some way with the miraculous birth of Christ, it is easy to understand why the devout pilgrims came to believe that the milky-hued substance represented the milk of the Virgin, which had been preserved for future ages in this extraordinary way.
A kind of galactite, evidently a finely deposited form of carbonate of lime and perhaps absorbent, is mentioned by Conrad Gesner.[[7]] This was found on the Pilatus Mountain, Lake Lucerne, and is described by Gesner as being a “fungous and friable” substance, white and exceedingly light in weight. The natives called it Mondmilch (moonmilk) and it was sold in the pharmacies of Lucerne. The powder was used by physicians in the treatment of ulcers, and, like all the other galactites, it was supposed to increase the flow of milk and to develop the breasts. Besides this it was credited with somniferous virtues.
An old Mohammedan tradition, cited by Ibn Kadho Shobah in his Tarik al-Jafthi, relates that Noah, after the deluge, on setting out with the members of his family to settle and populate the regions to the eastward and northward of Mt. Ararat, confided to their care a miraculous stone known to the Turks as jiude-tash, to the Persians as senkideh and to the Arabs as hajer al-mathar, or the “rain-stone.” On it was impressed the word Aadhem or Aazem, the great name of God, by virtue of which whosoever possessed this stone could cause rain to fall whenever he pleased. In the long lapse of time this particular “precious” stone was lost, but some of the Turks were said to have certain stones endowed with a like power, and the more superstitious among these Turks solemnly asseverated that their “rain-stones” could beget progeny by a mysterious kind of generation.[[8]]
Among the many stones or concretions endowed by medieval belief with wonderful powers, may be reckoned the “rain-making” stones. Some of these were to be found in Karmania, south of Khorassan. The miraculous effect was produced by rubbing one against another. The Arabic author who reports this declares that this rain-making power was a well-known fact. He adds that similar stones might be secured from near Toledo in Spain and also in the “land of Kimar,” inhabited by Turkish tribes.[[9]]
The Oriental rain-stones noted by pseudo-Aristotle and by many other Arabic writers of medieval times, can be paralleled by similar rain-making or rain-inducing stones in many other parts of the world and among many primitive peoples even in modern times. The rain-makers of the African tribe of Wahumas, dwelling in the region bordering on the great Albert Nyanza Lake in Central Africa, use a black stone in the course of their magic rites. This is put into a vessel and water poured over it; the pulverized roots of certain herbs and some blood drawn from the veins of a black goat are then mixed with the water, and the resulting liquid mixture is thrown up into the air by the rain-maker.[[10]] The sorcerers among the Dieri in Central Australia place such trust in the efficacy of these conjurations as to believe that all rainfalls are produced thereby, generally through the intermediate action of ancestral spirits. If rain falls in a locality where no proceedings of the kind have taken place, then it is supposed that they have been initiated in some contiguous territory, a merely spontaneous and natural rainfall being out of the question. The clouds indeed generate the rain, but it will not be brought to the earth except by magic art. In the complicated magic ceremonies of these Dieri rain-makers, two large stones are employed; after a ceremonial, in the course of which the blood drawn from the two chief sorcerers is smeared over the bodies of the others, the stones are borne away by these two sorcerers for a distance of about twenty miles, and there put far up on the highest tree that can be found, the object evidently being to bring them as near to the clouds as possible.[[11]]
Rock-crystal as a rain-compeller finds honor among the wizards of the Ta-ta-thi tribe in New South Wales, Australia. To bring down rain from the sky one of them will break off a fragment from a crystal and cast it heavenward, enwrapping the rest of the crystal in feathers. After immersing these with their enclosure in water, and leaving them to soak for a while, the whole is removed and buried in the earth, or hidden away in some safe place.[[12]] The widely spread fancy that rock-crystal is simply congealed water may have something to do with the choosing of this stone as a rain-maker.
Sumatrans of Kota Gadanz use a stone whose form roughly resembles that of a cat in their invocations of rain, a live black cat being supposed in some parts of this island to have certain rain-producing virtues.[[13]] Perhaps the electric fur of the animal may have suggested a connection with thunder-storms. Stones of this type, indeed a great many of those to which magic properties are attributed, are in many cases smeared with the blood of fowls, or have incense offered to them, this treatment of such stones being observed by the peasants in Scandinavia and other parts of Europe as well as in the Far East.
Stone crosses have sometimes been utilized as rain-bringers, as in the case of one belonging to St. Mary’s Church in the Island of Uist, one of the outer Hebrides, off the Scottish coast. When drought prevailed here the peasants would set up this cross which usually lay flat on the ground, in the confident belief that rain would ensue. Of course, sooner or later, it was sure to come, and then the cross, having done its duty, was quietly replaced in its former horizontal position.[[14]]
A mysterious stone mentioned in Rabbinical legend is called the shamir. This word occurs three times in the Old Testament (Jer. xvii, 1; Ezek. iii, 9; Zech. vii, 12), and in each signifies a material noted for its hardness. In the first of these passages there is express indication that the shamir was a pointed object used for engraving, and the word is translated “diamond” in our Bible; in the two other cases it is rendered “adamant” and “adamantine stone,” respectively, thus leaving the determination of the substance an open question. However, as it is almost certain that the Hebrews were not familiar with the diamond, shamir most probably signifies one of the varieties of corundum, the next hardest mineral to the diamond, and extensively used in classic times for engraving on softer stones.
In the luxuriant growth of legend that sprang up in Rabbinical times, the shamir is not forgotten. It is said to have been the seventh of the ten marvels created at the end of the sixth day of creation. In size, it is described as being not larger than a barley-corn, but it had the power to split up the hardest substances, if brought in contact with them, or even in their neighborhood. Some of the legends ascribe to it even more wonderful magic powers, so that, like Aladdin’s lamp, great buildings could be constructed by its help, Solomon having used it in the erection of the temple and other buildings. The etymology of the word indicates a pointed object, similar to our diamond-point, but in legend it is almost invariably described as a small worm, probably because of a fancied connection between this word and another designating a species of worm. Many have associated the Hebrew shamir with the Greek σμίρις, or emery.
The Hebrew shamir and the Greek ἀδάμας were both used metaphorically of hardness of heart and implacability. The Hebrew prophet Zechariah (vii, 12) says of the disobedient Jews that “they made their hearts as an adamant stone” (shamir), and the Greek poet Theocritus (fl. 228 B.C.) calls Pluto, the god of the infernal regions, “the adamas in Hades.” This clearly shows that invincible hardness was the common characteristic of the material designated by these words. However, it appears probable that while shamir signifies a form of corundum, the word adamas, as used by the early Greek writers, denoted a hard, metallic substance. Possibly, when iron first became known to the Greeks, the adjective ἀδαμάντινος, “indomitable,” was applied to it, and later the noun adamas was formed from this adjective and was used by the poets to signify an imaginary substance even harder than iron; hence, when the diamond became known in Greek lands, its extreme hardness suggested the application to it of this name.[[15]]
An Arab legend concerning the fabled shamir stone is related by Cazwini in his cosmography. When King Solomon set about building the temple in Jerusalem, he commanded Satan to dress the stones that were to be used, but the work was performed with such demoniac energy that the people round about complained bitterly of the dreadful noise. To remedy this trouble, Solomon sought the council of the leading scribes and also that of the evil spirits known as Ifrites and Jinns. None of them, however, was able to help him in this difficulty, but one of them advised him to question an apostate named Sahr, who sometimes had special knowledge of such things. When called upon for his opinion, Sahr declared that he knew of a stone that would do the work required, but did not know where it could be found; nevertheless he believed that, by a stratagem, he could secure possession of it. He thereupon ordered that an eagle’s nest with its eggs should be brought to him, and also a bottle-shaped vessel made of very strong glass. Into this he slipped the eggs, put them back into the nest, and had nest and eggs replaced where they had been found. When the eagle returned to the nest it encountered this obstacle. In vain it struck at the vessel with claws and beak; after repeated efforts it flew away, but came back on the second day holding a piece of stone in its beak, which it let fall upon the vessel, breaking the latter into two halves without producing any sound. Upon this, Solomon, who knew the language of beasts and birds, asked the eagle where it had secured the stone. The bird answered: “O Prophet of God, in a mountain in the West called the Samur Mountain.” This was indication enough to the wise king who, summoning the Jinns to his aid, soon had in Jerusalem a plentiful supply of these samûr, or shamir stones, with which the work of shaping and polishing the blocks for the temple was noiselessly performed.[[16]]
Full and precise directions are given by the old authorities as to the proper way to secure possession of the stone called corvia. On the Calends, or first day of April, eggs are to be taken out of a crow’s nest and boiled until they are quite hard; they are then to be allowed to cool off and are replaced in the nest. The female bird notes that the eggs have been tampered with and flies away in search of the corvia-stone. When she has found it, she bears it to the nest, and as soon as it touches the eggs they become fresh and fertile again. This is the auspicious moment for securing the stone, which must be quickly taken from the nest else it would lose its virtue.[[17]] The lucky owner of the stone is promised increase of wealth and honors, and the power to read the future.
The fabled gem-bearing dragons of India were said to have sometimes fallen victims to the enchanter’s art. Certain mystic characters were woven in thread of gold upon a scarlet cloth, and this cloth was spread by the hunters before the dragon’s den. When the creature emerged, his eyes were fascinated by the strange letters in which the enchanter had infused a wonderful soporific power. Hypnotized by the sight, the dragon would fall into a deep slumber and the hunters would rush upon him and sever his head from his body. Within the head were found gems of brilliant hue, some of these possessing the power of rendering the wearer invisible.[[18]]
The “Gem of Sovranty,” or the “Gem of the King of Kings,” may have been a purely poetic Hindu fancy, or possibly may have been the diamond. Its surpassing quality is emphasized by the declaration that though the earth produced the sapphire, the cat’s-eye, the topaz, the ruby, and the two mystic gems, the favorite of the sun, and the favorite of the moon, the Gem of the King of Kings was acknowledged to be the chief of all “for the sheen of that jewel spreads round about for a league on every side.” To King Milinda the following question was put: “Suppose that on the disappearance of a sovran overlord, the mystic Gem of Sovranty lay concealed in a cleft on the mountain peak, and that on another sovran overlord arriving at the supreme dignity it should appear to him, would you say, O King, that the gem was produced by him?” “Certainly not, sir,” replied the monarch, “the gem would be in its original condition. But it had received, as it were, a new birth through him.”[[19]]
The Arabian author, Ibn Al-Beithar (b. ca. 1197 A.D.), describes a stone called in Arabic hajer al-kelb, or “dog-stone.” These stones had such attraction for dogs of a certain breed that when cast before them they would snap them up, bite them, and hold them in their jaws. The magicians saw in this a proof that the stones would produce enmity and ill-will among men. Having selected seven such stones they marked them with the names of any persons between whom they wished to stir up strife. The seven stones were then thrown one by one before a dog of the requisite species, and, after he had bitten them, two were chosen and were placed in water of which the persons who were to be set at variance were sure to drink. We are assured that the experiment had the desired evil result.[[20]]
In ancient times there was found in the river Meander a stone satirically named sophron, “temperate.” If it were placed upon the breast of any one, he immediately became enraged and killed one of his parents; however, after having appeased the Mother of the Gods, he was cured of his temporary madness.[[21]]
A most singular stone is described by Thomas de Cantimpré under the name of “piropholos.” This substance, according to Konrad von Megenberg’s version, was taken from the heart of a man who had been poisoned, “because the heart of such a man cannot be burned in fire.” If the heart were kept for nine years in fire this wonderful stone was produced. It gave protection from lightning, but its principal virtue was to guard the wearer from sudden death; indeed, we are told that a man could not die so long as he held this stone in his hand. However, it did not preserve him from disease, but only prolonged his life. The stone was said to be of a light and bright red color.[[22]]
After enumerating all the well-known precious stones, Volmar, in his “Steinbuch,” proceeds to relate that there is one which produces blindness, another that enables the wearer to understand the language of birds, still another that saves people from drowning, and, finally, one of such sovereign power that it brings back the dead to life. However, we are told that because of the miraculous virtues of these stones God hides them so well that no man can obtain them.[[23]] About a century earlier Saint Hildegard of Bingen wrote that “just as a poisonous herb placed on a man’s skin will produce ulceration,” by an analogous though contrary effect “certain precious stones will, if placed on the skin, confer health and sanity by their virtue.”[[24]]
Persian records tell of a “royal stone” found in the head of the ouren bad, a kind of eagle; this preserved the wearer from the attacks of venomous reptiles. If a deadly poison had been administered to a person, he would be immediately cured by taking one drachm’s weight of the stone. It thus appears that its virtues were those of the far-famed bezoar.[[25]] Persia evidently had good store of “wonderworkers” of this kind, for the Persian romance entitled “Hatim Tai and the Benevolent Lady,” written about the beginning of the eighteenth century, recites the marvellous virtue of a stone called the Shah-muhra. If this were fastened on the arm the wearer became endowed with miraculous vision and all the gold and precious stones beneath the earth’s surface were revealed to him.[[26]]
For ten centuries or more, countless thousands, although feeling assured of spiritual immortality, were none the less eager to have eternal youth and vigor and the power to peer into the future. Hence Ponce de Leon’s quest for the “Fountain of Youth” in our Florida. But in addition to this, there has ever been an intense desire to find something by means of which gold could be made out of the baser metals, for youth and vigor, if coupled with poverty, are only half-blessings. The search for the “Philosopher’s Stone” appears to have been a more or less aimless pursuit of this end; but there can be no doubt that this search led to the discovery of many new substances and reactions, and helped to lay the foundation of our modern chemistry. Whether the conscious aim of the alchemist was the discovery of an actual stone, or merely the discovery of some process for turning a valueless substance into one of great value, is not clearly ascertainable from the purposely vague and obscure treatises on alchemy.
The “Philosopher’s Stone,” the fond dream of so many who delved into nature’s mysteries in the past, does not seem so improbable to-day as it did twenty years ago. The recent discovery of the element radium, which is produced from the element uranium, and the story of the strange and protean changes of radium into helium, neon and argon, according to the environment in which it is placed, have given the death-blow to the old idea of the immutability of the elements. Still, while we have been allowed this peep into the storehouse of nature’s secrets, and are growing to believe that in eons of time the various different elements may have been evolved, successively, from one another, the power to provoke this change at will and in a brief space of time is as yet withheld from us, and may never be given to us, just as little as the power to send messages to the distant spheres, whose bulk, density and composition we can estimate with a considerable degree of accuracy.
Numerous specimens still exist of what is alleged to be artificial gold made by the alchemists of a past age. Of all these the most striking is a large medallion, bearing in relief the heads of Emperor Leopold and his ancestors of the House of Hapsburg. It is related that on the name day of the emperor in 1677, this medallion, originally of silver and weighing 7250 grains, was transmuted into gold by Wenzel Seiler, a noted alchemist of that time. This wonder was performed in full view of the emperor and his courtiers, by dipping the medallion in a solution. As there are four notches on the edge, it has been conjectured that these were made to secure material for testing the quality of the transformed metal. However, the simple test of specific gravity shows that the metal cannot be gold, for according to Bauer’s calculation made in 1883, the medallion has a specific gravity of 12.67, between that of silver (10.5) and that of gold (19.27). This might indicate that in some unexplained way the alchemist had succeeded in precipitating a coating of gold upon the face of the object. It seems probable that the deception was soon discovered, for Seiler, who had been knighted on September 16, 1676, was exiled by order of Emperor Leopold, not long after the date on which the supposed transmutation is said to have taken place.
An exceedingly rare medal, and one of great interest to students of alchemy, was struck in 1647 by order of Emperor Ferdinand III from gold produced in his presence by Johann Peter Hofmann, a master of the alchemical art. A specimen of this medal is in the Imperial Cabinet of Coins in Vienna.[[27]] On the obverse, around two shields, one bearing eight fleurs-de-lis and the other the figure of a lion, are two hermetic inscriptions: Lilia Cum Niveo Copulantur Fulva Leone (yellow lilies lie down with the snow-white lion), and Sic Leo Mansuescet Sic Lilia Fulva Virescent (thus will the lion be tamed and thus will the yellow lilies flourish). Around a crown surmounting the two shields appear the initial letters I. P. H. V. N. F., indicating Latin words the sense of which is “Johannes Petrus Hofmann a Nurembergian subject made it,” and also the letters T G V L, intended to signify tinturæ guttæ v. libram, or “five drops of the tincture [transmuted] a pound.” The reverse has Latin words denoting that iron was the base of this tincture, the symbols used for lead, tin, copper, mercury, silver and gold being each accompanied by a cryptic declaration that Mars (iron) had controlled the respective metal.[[28]]
Besides the “Philosopher’s Stone,” the chief object of their quest, the alchemists believed that several other stones possessing magic virtues could be produced. Among these was the “angelical stone,” which gave power to see the angels in dreams and visions, and also the “mineral stone,” a substance by means of which common flints could be transmuted into diamonds, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, etc.[[29]] Possibly some alchemists were glass-makers, and fused the quartz with various mineral salts into imitations of the gems, having the colors, but not the hardness or other properties.
One of the strangest fancies as to the medicinal efficacy of stones is that held by the native Australians, who believe that “crystals” are embedded in the bodies of their medicine-men. This belief is encouraged by the medicine-men themselves; indeed, they are supposed only to retain their power so long as these atnongara or ultunda stones remain in their bodies, and a share of their might can be transmitted by transferring certain of the stones from their own bodies to that of another. The ceremony proceeds as follows:[[30]]
The Nung-gara [medicine-men] then withdrew from their bodies a number of small clear crystals called Ultunda which were placed one by one, as they were extracted, in the hollow of a spear-thrower. When a sufficient number had been withdrawn, the Nung-gara directed the man who had come with them to clasp the candidate from behind and to hold him tightly. Then each of them picked up some crystals, and taking hold of a leg, gripped the stones firmly and pressed them slowly and strongly along the front of the leg and then up the body as high as the breast-bone. This was repeated three times, the skin being scored at intervals with scratches, from which blood flowed. By this means the magic crystals are supposed to be forced into the body of the man.... After which each of them pressed a crystal on the head of the novice and struck it hard, the idea being to drive it into the skull, the scalp being made to bleed during the process....
One of the Nung-gara then withdrew from his skull just behind his ear (that is, he told the novice that he kept it there) a thin and sharp Ultunda, and taking up some dust from the ground, dried the man’s tongue with it, and then, pulling it out as far as possible, he made with the stone an incision almost half an inch in length.
The mesticas of the Malays represent a class of stones differing in important respects from the various types of bezoars. A principal distinction is that the mesticas are not supposed to owe their origin to pathological conditions in the organism wherein they occur, but rather to a superabundance of the normal and healthy constituents of the animal or plant. It is probably due to this that the virtues of these particular concretions are rather talismanic than therapeutic, and that they are believed to endow the finder, or one who receives them by gift, with courage, immunity from injury, and also with cunning and shrewdness in the affairs of life. Especially by warriors are these stones highly valued, for they are supposed to protect the wearer from wounds; indeed, this belief sometimes went so far as to lead the Malays to think that absolute invulnerability was conferred on one who carried several of them bound so closely to the skin that in some cases they even penetrated the flesh. The typical mestica is described as a hard stone, brilliant but seldom transparent; it is found in the flesh or fat, in the heart or on the legs of animals, and also sometimes in plants.[[31]]
Rumphius declares that many extraordinary cases were related of warriors who could not be injured by any weapons until the mestica had been cut out of their flesh, wherein it had become embedded. Indeed, he states that Dutch officers of proved veracity had confidently asserted that they had encountered such men among their native antagonists. While Rumphius feels himself therefore forced to admit the truth of the invulnerability of these men, he hastens to add that such powers could not be inherent in any piece of stone, but must owe their origin to diabolical agencies.[[32]] The fact that the Mohammedans had their mesticas blessed by the priests of their faith, and burned incense beneath them on Fridays, the Mohammedan equivalent of the Christian Sunday, did not probably shake the belief of Rumphius that the Devil had something to do with these substances.
The medicine-men of the Kainugá Indians of Paraguay mutter incantations over the bodies of the sick, and then, after many struggles and contortions, proceed to extract stones from their mouths, claiming that they have taken the patient’s disease into their own bodies, the stones being regarded as the seat of the ailment. In one case, the medicine-man produced five of these stones before the patient admitted that his pain was relieved. After the cure was completed the sorcerer was clever enough to feign extreme exhaustion, as though his vital forces had been subjected to a tremendous strain.[[33]]
INDIAN MEDICINE-MEN
From “Histoire Générale des Cérémonies Religieuses de tous les Peuples du Monde,” by Abbé Banier and Abbé Mascrier, Paris, 1741.
In British New Guinea similar tactics are resorted to by the native doctors. A native who was suffering from lumbago fully believed the tale that his disease was caused by a stone embedded in his flesh. When the sorcerer made passes over this man’s back and then exhibited a stone which he pretended to have taken thence, the sufferer was convinced that the disease had left his body, and he began to feel relief. When examined, his back showed some superficial cuts at the spot where the stone was said to have been extracted. In another case, however, when a child was to be operated upon in a like way, the child’s father became suspicious and seized the operator’s hands before they came into contact with the little one’s body; the result being that the disease-laden stone was found concealed in the operator’s hand.[[34]]
Pebble-mania or lithomania is an inherent trait in all mankind. From the most primitive man to the most modern, especially those of optimistic and investigating tendencies, this trait is present in a greater or lesser degree. That is, curious people would collect pebbles for their bright colors, or markings, for their transparency or translucence, and those of an investigating turn of mind, under the impression that the find was perhaps a diamond or a gem of some kind. In modern times this kind of collecting has developed into a regular industry, pebbles found on the shores of the United States and which are either pure white, transparent or translucent quartz, being cut and offered for sale. These pebbles are gathered, and are valuable to those who make a business of selling them, because the white opaque pebbles become translucent after cutting, or rather, during the process of cutting, and they are then passed off for moonstones, which are worth from one-third to one-half more than the cost of cutting the quartz pebbles, the purchaser being led to believe that he is getting a moonstone, although this could not be possible, since moonstones have never been found on either the eastern or the western coast of the United States. As for the cut moonstones which are brought back by the tourist, under the impression that he is getting native material and workmanship, these all come from Europe.
Pebble-mania is not confined to mankind alone. Birds and animals possess it. The magpie picks up and hides away bright objects, including odd pebbles, or carries them to its nest. The stones known as ætites were said to be found in eagles’ nests, although they may have been swallowed by the birds for digestive purposes, just as the hen’s crop is full of stones, many of them being transparent, a proof that the fowl had been attracted by them, and had swallowed these in preference to other, duller ones. Notable instances of transparent pebbles are the alectorii, or “cock-stones.”
The great Italian goldsmith and sculptor, Benvenuto Cellini (1500–1574), relates that when a youth he often shot cranes with his arquebuse, and that in several instances he found in their entrails not only fine turquoises, but also fragments of the so-called plasma-emerald and even occasionally small pearls. This serves to indicate that the pretty exterior of such objects exerted an influence upon these birds in some degree analogous to the impressions aroused in mankind on viewing them.[[35]]
In seventeenth century Denmark there seems to have been no lack of “magic stones,” for it is related that one day as King Christian II was strolling along the beach, he picked up a shining pebble by the aid of which he could render himself invisible at will. Similar power was said to exist in stones that could be found in ant-hills if hot water were thrown onto them on St. Walpurgis Day, or St. Hans’ Day. The Danes of the time also shared in the belief that the stone from the lapwing preserved from illness and sorrow as did the “swallow’s-stone” as well.[[36]]
It has frequently been maintained that the source of pebbles could be broadly determined by their form and surface; for example, well-rounded specimens of fairly uniform size would be classed as marine pebbles, while river-pebbles would be subangular and usually flat; pebbles of glacial origin, on the other hand, would have faceted, rounded edges, their surfaces being polished and striated. However, although these rules might hold good in many cases, careful observation has demonstrated that pebbles of all these supposedly distinct types can be found among those of marine, fluviatile, or lacustrine origin. This is explicable by the fact that while the constant, unhindered action of sea or river would probably produce pebbles of distinct type, the local conditions often interfere with this. For instance, on a low sea-coast, with weak wave-action, pebbles frequently became buried in the sands, thus retaining their form practically unchanged, and even where the waves are stronger, so that the pebbles are more or less constantly exposed to their force, it must be borne in mind that some of these coast pebbles have been swept down by rivers, or have already been affected by glacial action. In these cases the force of the waves will indeed modify the form, but along the lines of that already produced by the earlier agencies. Broadly stated, those that were round or oval would generally remain so, rectangular fragments might have their angles worn away and become elliptical, while flat fragments would not exhibit any notable change in shape.[[37]]
When a group of pebbles have been long exposed to attrition by the waters of a powerful stream, especially where the current is intermittent, and where a large quantity of sand has been worked or blown into the stream by freshet or wind storm, they may become rounded by the erosive action of the water or by the abrasive power of the sand, as well as by the attrition consequent upon their sharp contact with one another. This is exemplified in the case of boulders in a river bed, it having been noted in certain streams on the Navajo Reservation that while the upstream sides of the boulders were polished and rounded, and even sometimes faceted and etched, but little change was observable on the downstream sides. This has been tested experimentally, holes an inch in depth having been drilled in opposite sides of sandstone boulders, and on examination five years later in five different localities where this had been done, the deepest hole remaining on the upstream sides measured but four-tenths of an inch, while in one locality the holes had entirely disappeared, and yet so trifling was the effect of the water on the downstream side that a blue-pencil mark had not been washed away. Of course, the erosion of quartzite and limestone boulders tested in this way proved to be a much slower process, amounting to less than one-hundredth of an inch annually. Another important consideration in the shaping of pebbles by river-water is the swiftness of the current, it having been noted, for instance, that those which have been washed down the steep slopes of the Navajo Mountain and the edge of the Black Mesa are somewhat better rounded than those that have been borne along for a much greater distance by less swift-flowing water.
That striated, faceted, or polished pebbles are always of glacial origin, or that those of glacial origin usually offer these characteristics is far from the fact; indeed, it may rather be said that they are generally missing. The fluvio-glacial drift is much more widespread than ground moraine, and the pebbles found in the former rarely present these aspects; indeed, it has been noted that in an hour’s search through the glacial drift of Connecticut, only a single such specimen may be met with. On the other hand, many pebbles of this type have been found under conditions plainly showing that the striation was due to other causes, in some instances, as with those occurring in conglomerates, to pressure and differential movement.[[38]]
The burying of white stones or lumps of quartz with the dead was not infrequent in early times in Ireland. The peasants of the north of Ireland call these Godstones. A cist found at Barnasraghy, County Sligo, was nearly filled with quartz pebbles, and not long since a white stone was found in a primitive burial place near Larne, County Antrim. That this was a usage confined to the earlier period of Irish history is generally admitted, and the discovery of such white stones in a grave is accepted as an indication that it belongs to an early date.[[39]]
It has been suggested that these white stones were used for burials because of the symbolic meaning of the color, which to the minds of many primitive peoples was that of purity, as indeed it is still among most modern peoples, although the symbolism may not always be consciously accepted. White marble seems to most of us the most appropriate and beautiful stone for monuments, and if to a very considerable degree granite is now used as a substitute, this is principally because of its greater resistance to the deteriorating effect of atmospheric changes. Already in prehistoric times, the cave-dwellers showed a fondness for gathering quartz crystals and fragments, and specimens of those taken from the Auvergne Mountains have been found in the cave-dwellings of Les Eyzies; they may have been used as amulets or talismans.[[40]]
A legend of the great Irish saint, Columba, gives an instance of the curative use of white pebbles. After this saint had vainly entreated Broichan the Druid to free a Christian bond-maiden, as a last resort he menaced the druid with approaching death. The prediction or curse was speedily on the way to fulfilment, Broichan sickened unto death, and in his terror consented to free the maiden. Hereupon St. Columba went to the river Ness and picked up out of its shallows several white pebbles, announcing that they would, by the Lord’s power, work the cure of heathen people. One of the stones was blessed by the saint and placed in a vessel filled with water, on the surface of which it floated, and as soon as Broichan had taken a draught of the liquid he was restored to perfect health.[[41]]
A famous Scotch amulet was a polished globular mass of white quartz, an inch and three-quarters in diameter, owned by the chiefs of Clan Donnachaidh and known as the “Stone of the Banner.” It had been accidentally found by a chief of this clan, who, on his way to join Robert Bruce in 1315, before the battle of Bannockburn, noted a glittering stone embedded in a clod of earth that had become attached to his flagstaff. It was looked upon as a powerful talisman in battle, and water in which it had been dipped was said to cure diseases. Tradition asserted that this white stone of Clan Donnachaidh was identical with that used long before by St. Columba.[[42]] As such white stones were often deposited in graves, sometimes even being placed in the mouth of a deceased person, it has been suggested that perhaps the sparks emitted by the quartz on percussion were believed to shed some faint gleams along the dark pathway of the departed in his journey to the underworld. In Christian times there can be little doubt in regard to the influence exercised by the text in Revelation: “To him that overcometh ... I will give a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it.”[[43]]
Crystal balls are not only valued for the visions to be seen, or supposed to be seen in them, but are sometimes worn as amulets against illness. In some parts of Japan they are thought to ward off dropsy, and their wear is also recommended to guard from all wasting diseases.[[44]] The likeness of rock-crystal to congealed water may well be credited, in the doctrine of sympathy, with its putative power of preventing the watery infiltration from which a dropsical patient suffers. As the Japanese make many choice crystal balls, these objects are generally more or less familiar in that land and have thus appealed as well to those who were superstitious as to those who appreciated things beautiful in themselves.
In Yucatan quartz crystals were not only used for divining, but also to ensure the success of the crops. The fact that such crystals have been found in the Indian mounds of Arkansas, North Carolina, and elsewhere, may warrant the supposition that they had been worn as talismans and then interred with the deceased persons as a most intimate part of their property. The writer’s personal observation in Garland and Montgomery counties, Arkansas, demonstrated that quartz crystals were to be found in mounds together with chipped arrow-points of chalcedony, although the crystals did not appear to have been worked in any way. The region about Hot Springs, Arkansas, has furnished some of the finest rock-crystal found in the United States. From North Carolina also have come many remarkable specimens, the largest of which, found in 1886, was unluckily broken up by the person who discovered it. In its crystal state it must have weighed about 300 pounds, and if cut would have furnished a crystal ball 4½ or 5 inches in diameter. This splendid crystal came from Phœnix Mountain, Chestnut Hill township, in Ashe County, North Carolina, and from the largest fragment recovered, weighing 51 pounds, several slabs 8 inches square and from half inch to one inch in thickness were cut. Nearby a crystal weighing 285 pounds was found, and another weighing 188 pounds. Some of the crystals from this locality had on one side a green coating of chlorite, and when this was not removed, the effect was as though one saw a green moss growing beneath a pool of water. The rock-crystal slabs have an advantage over glass when used for mirrors, as they more truly reflect the tints of a fine complexion. Brilliant crystals from Lake George and its neighborhood have been called “Lake George Diamonds.” In marked contrast with the large examples we have noted, many crystals of quartz are so small that 200,000 would have an aggregate weight of but one ounce and yet many are perfect crystals and doubly terminated.
The presence of white quartz pebbles in some graves of the Indian Moundbuilders, appears to be indicated to a satisfactory extent in the case of certain specimens from the Etowah Mound in Georgia; these pebbles, which form part of the Steiner collections in the United States National Museum, were not, however, worked or polished in any way, nor are there any traces of use for ornament or decoration. On the other hand, white quartz pebbles from the Pueblo region of the Southwest offer undeniable signs of having been long used and are of frequent occurrence; some of these have been found in graves. In connection with the probable reasons determining their presence the designations “fire stones” or “charms” have been given them; some specimens of this worked quartz had evidently been worn as pendants, while others had probably been regarded as fetishes.[[45]]
It is most interesting to note that the superstitious use of these objects in burials was so widespread as to prove that it must have been due to some inherent property or properties in white stones, and especially in pebbles of white quartz, which appealed very strongly to the mind of primitive man. That, as has been noted above, the conception of purity should be associated with whiteness, in its contrast to any obscure color, is natural enough, and rests upon the association of spotless cleanliness with moral purity, and very probably the sparkles of light emitted by a bright piece of quartz, normally or on percussion, brought this material into some connection with the worship of fire, or of fire-gods. To another possible conception along the same lines we have already alluded.
An instance is reported where a very curious quartz pebble, one-half white and the other black, was found within the hand bones of the skeleton of an Indian; the finder carried it about with him for many years as a “lucky stone,” but it appears that his personal experience of its effects, if these can be judged from what happened to the bearer of such a talisman, has been of a kind to shatter the most robust faith in the protective power of his Indian charm. Possibly the strange relic may have symbolized night and day for the Indians, and thus have been believed to guard the wearer or the person with whom it was buried, at all times and seasons. That pebbles of this sort were sometimes buried in the ground, disposed in circles and squares, is vouched for by some who claim to have unearthed them in ploughing, but our informant was not able to confirm these statements, as the arrangements had always been effectually disturbed before he reached the spot.[[46]]
In many graves of the primitive Red-paint People of Maine, small pebbles have been found. As they were not large enough to have served as paint-grinders, and as but one such pebble occurs in any single grave, the presumption is quite strong that they were considered as talismans for the dead. The fact that the practical laborers of our day who dug out these graves instinctively named the pebbles “lucky stones” goes to prove that this supposition is not too far-fetched, although there is no positive evidence to support it. The pebbles were yellow, bright red, or gray in color, the graves explored being at Orland, Maine, as well as at the outlet of Lake Alamoosook, on the south side of this lake and at Passadumkeag; indeed such graves have been met with all the way from the Kennebec Valley eastward to Bar Harbor.[[47]]
The respective symbolic meanings of white and black are illustrated in the designations “white magic” and “black magic,” the latter denoting conjurations or spells in which the aid of the powers of darkness, of the Devil and his demons, was sought by the sorcerer, while “white magic” was to be performed by harmless and innocent means, sometimes even by religious rites. In this way it sometimes so closely approached the domain of religious miracle, that it becomes difficult to distinguish between these two conceptions of supernatural action in the material world.
Quartz of a different type with needle-like inclusions is called “Thetis’s hair stone.” This is a transparent or translucent quartz, but so completely filled with acicular crystals of green actinolite, or occasionally altered actinolite of a yellow-brown or brown color, as to appear almost opaque; seals and charms have been made to a small extent of this variety. Of other inclusions in quartz we may note those of a very brilliant stibnite projecting in all directions, some of the intruded crystals being very curiously bent. Exceedingly beautiful gems have been cut from this material.[[48]] When this quartz is cut en cabochon across the ravalette inclusions, a cat’s-eye effect is produced. The yellow quartz cat’s-eye of Ceylon and the green of Haff, Bavaria, are of this type. So densely set were the green actinolite inclusions in the case of a specimen found at Gibsonville, North Carolina, that it was believed by the finder to be an emerald.
An extremely beautiful effect in quartz is produced by enclosed, acicular crystals, or hair-like particles of some other mineral, such as rutile, for instance, and sometimes even of gold. To specimens of this latter type may be referred the Greek name “chrysothrix,” used in the Orphic poem “Lithica” and signifying literally “golden hair”; of this the verses tell us there were two varieties, that which may be identified with quartz, having a resemblance to “crystal,” while the other, said to have the appearance of chrysoberyl, may have been a yellower variety. To the quartz traversed by filaments of rutile, or the red oxide of titanium, has been given the taking name of “Venus’s hair stone”; a pretty French name is Flèches d’Amour or “Cupid’s Arrows.”[[49]]
The California beaches have furnished some of the most interesting ornamental pebbles, the greater number being of chalcedony or agate weathered from an amygdaloidal rock, while a few are of jasper or fossil coral. Their variegated color-markings made them very attractive ornamental objects in themselves, and there is reason to believe that centuries ago the Indians of this region valued them as talismans or amulets. At present the finest specimens are gathered from Pescadero Beach in San Mateo County, about twenty-four miles west of San José, Redondo Beach, fifteen miles south of Los Angeles, and also from Crescent City Beach, in the northern part of California. On Moonstone Beach, Santa Catalina Island, many beautiful quartz and chalcedony nodules have been picked up, which have weathered out of ryolite rock of sanidine feldspar and quartz. It has been quite a custom for guests of the hotels to go down to Redondo Beach and gather these pebbles, and some of those collected by enterprising natives are placed in a bottle of water to bring out the beauty of their colors. Sometimes they are drilled and strung on flexible wire to form long chains or necklaces. Several pebbles presumably from Redondo Beach were found, in 1901, in an Indian grave, where they were probably placed as amulets for the dead.[[50]]
By courtesy of California State Mining Bureau.
1. Chalcedony and agate pebbles from Pescadero Beach, San Mateo County, California.
2. Pebble Beach, Redondo, Los Angeles County, California.
From George Frederick Kunz’s “Semi-precious Stones of California,” Sacramento, 1905.
Bulletin No. 37 of the State Mining Bureau.
The occurrence of fluid cavities in quartz, chalcedony, sapphire, and other minerals, is due at times to cavernous structures formed during the growth of these minerals, when the crystalline substances, for some reason, instead of filling these up solid, will avoid the caverns and enclose the liquid of crystallization. In agate inclusions this is found with silicious content, possibly due to the fact that it is to an extent carbonic acid gas, or water containing salt or some other foreign substance. In agate chalcedony, whether in pebbles as minute as a pinhead, or in amygdules several feet across, the liquid is enclosed because the walls of the gas-pores in the rock, which are frequently almond-shaped, are gradually becoming smaller, or rather the walls thicken by the deposition of the silica forming agate, chalcedony, or any impenetrable layers, or else an impenetrable form of quartz; then again, frequently toward the centre or when the liquid forms less rapidly, or through some change, the quartz becomes crystalline, either colorless, smoky, or amethystine, and this is due to various inclusions. This gradual thickening of the walls means that the aperture into which the liquid penetrates becomes smaller and smaller until at last it is entirely sealed, so that it becomes enclosed in a kind of nature’s water-bottle, these being sometimes as large as in the chalcedony specimens from Uruguay; this is also the case with the hydrolites and the enhydros, when they can be shaken and the water rattles as in a bottle.
An occasional small Redondo Beach, California, or Medford, Oregon pebble contains a moving bubble of air in liquid.
Most wonderful specimens of rutilated quartz are the great, rich brown, possibly titanium-colored masses in the Morgan Collection at the American Museum of Natural History, that in the Vaux Collection at the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, and a smaller mass in the British Museum; these were all obtained near Middlesex, Vermont. The rutile is a rich transparent or translucent red, varying in thinness from that of an ordinary needle to that of a knitting-needle, and even to that of a thin lead-pencil. Wonderful specimens are also found in the Alps of St. Gotthard, in Madagascar, and in Alexander County, North Carolina, where they are found in quantity as minute crystals of a rich red or golden yellow.
Other curious and interesting rock-crystals with inclusions are those showing enclosed drops of water, the kind termed enhydros by Pliny[[51]] and many old writers; in some of the rarer specimens the enclosed water is present in considerable quantity. Quartz with inclusions of this type was highly appreciated in the Greco-Roman world, and one of the best poets of the Decadence, Claudian (fl. about 400 A.D.), composed a series of poetic epigrams upon them, seven of these being in Latin and two in Greek. An example of the best in each tongue, the first in the former and the second in the latter, must be of interest, although the literal prose version cannot have the charm of the original verse.[[52]]
The Alpine ice, already precious in its frigidity, acquires an intense hardness through the action of the solar rays, but unable to transform itself entirely into a gem, it betrays its original source by the water that still remains within it. This adds at once to the beauty of this liquid stone and to its value.
In its changeful aspect, this crystal born from snow and fashioned by the hand of man is an image of the world, of the heavens enclosing cruel ocean in their wide embrace.
An old superstition among the Laplanders of Sweden is that in order to avert or cure disease which may be or has been caused by sleeping in the open air on the exposed moorland, three pebbles should be gathered, one from the water, one out of the earth, and the third from the surface of the ground or “from the air.” These are placed on a fire until they become red-hot, and are then thrown into water; the stone which sizzles most is that belonging to the element which has caused the illness. The whole body, or sometimes only the afflicted part, is to be moistened with the water in which the pebbles have been immersed, and each separate stone is to be carefully returned to the spot whence it was taken.[[53]]
Near Middleville, in Herkimer County, New York, in a calciferous limestone, gray and brownish-gray in color, there are numerous cavities varying in size from that of a pinhead to that of a man’s head. In these cavities are found carbonaceous substances such as asphaltum and other hard, black hydrocarbons. These cavities also frequently show mud or sand adhering to the sides, or mud and sand mixed with the petroleum, in which are often found brilliant and transparent rock-crystals, the purest of any found in the world. They are unusually perfect hexagonal prisms with both sets of six pyramid faces; that is, with same slight modification, eighteen brilliantly polished faces. These are especially sought after on account of their great purity, and because it is considered that he who wears one will have fair weather and secure the blessing of fair sailing on the sea of life. Some of these crystals are so small, though of absolute perfection, that it would require 250,000 of them to weigh an ounce; others again are sometimes as large as from one to two inches in length. When not entirely transparent they frequently contain inclusions of black asphaltum or other hydrocarbons and also contain hollow cavities which are filled with fluid, sometimes salt water and sometimes liquid carbonic acid gas. In these are moving bubbles and occasionally a heavy hydrocarbon; that is, a bubble will ascend and the hydrocarbon will sink; or else the bubble will rise and take with it a small speck of hydrocarbon, and another will sink. In a wonderful specimen now at the American Museum of Natural History there is an object like a small spider of hydrocarbon which sinks while a minute water-bubble rises. They are called fair-weather stones.
Tasmanian rain-makers use white stones in their magical rites; however, the stone by itself is not considered an effective talisman, for it must be dipped in the blood of a young girl to give it added power. After a number of white pebbles have been steeped for a time in this blood, the rain-maker ties them up in strips of bark and sinks them in some deep water-hole in which a diabolical spirit is supposed to dwell. The natives confidently assert that this ceremony is soon followed by the desired rainfall. As the belief prevails here as elsewhere, that these white stones or pebbles to retain their power must not be looked upon by a woman, it seems a little strange that the rain-bringing stone is dipped in a young girl’s blood.[[54]]
However, white stones have not always and everywhere been regarded as lucky, for it is stated that among the fishermen of the Isle of Man the presence of a white stone in a fishing-smack is confidently believed to portend poor fishing. Indeed it has been reported by a Scotchman, who went out in a fishing boat for several consecutive days with a party of Manx fishermen, that after a succession of days marked by poor fishing they began to nickname him “White Stone.”[[55]]
An oath taken on sacred stones was regarded by the ancient Scandinavians as peculiarly binding upon him who took such an oath; in the old Norse annals it is stated that Gudrun Gjukesdatter offered King Atle that he would take an oath on the “pure white stone.” The hero Duthmaruno is said to have sworn by “Loda’s Stone of Power,” which represented the almighty divinity of the Norsemen.[[56]]
A sacred well on the north side of Lough Neagh, Ireland, lends peculiar sanctity to the yellow crystals found in great quantity near by. The belief in their miraculous quality finds expression in the legend that they grow up out of the ground on Midsummer Night, and whosoever wishes to possess them as talismans must pronounce certain magic rhymes in the act of collecting them. They then become luck-bringers of potent virtue and ensure the prosperity of the household in which they are guarded.[[57]]
The stone, or rather rock, named catlinite, and popularly known as “pipe-stone,” was regarded by certain tribes as one of their most valuable materials,[[58]] and was extensively used for pipe-bowls. In color it ranges from a deep red to an ashy tint; the chief quarry is situated some three hundred miles west of the Falls of St. Anthony, on the dividing ridge between the Saint Peter’s and Missouri rivers. This region was visited in 1836 by George Catlin, to whom we are indebted for the preservation of so much regarding Indian folk-lore and customs, and after whom the substance is named. While it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty for how long a time the Indians were familiar with this material, there are those who believe that the quarries were worked and the material used for pipe-bowls by native sculptors long before the earliest notice we have to that effect.[[59]] Great skill and patience were displayed by the Indians in the making of these pipe-bowls, which were sometimes carved with various symbolical figures. We have an early record of such pipes from the pen of Jacques Marquette, a Jesuit missionary to the Indians, who saw one when visiting the Illinois Indians in 1673. He reports it as being of polished red stone, like marble, so pierced that one orifice served to hold the tobacco, while the other was fastened on the stem, which was a stick two feet long, as thick as a common cane and pierced in the middle. The whole was covered with large feathers of red, green, and other colors.
Catlin states that at the time of his visit the “pipe-stone” quarry was guarded with a certain religious reverence from the visit of the white man, the Indians declaring that this red stone was “a part of their flesh,” and that to take it from them would be to tear out their flesh and spill their blood. This highly poetic language may or may not have signified a superstitious reverence for the substance; indeed, it may simply have voiced the fear of these Indians that they might be despoiled of what for them was an especially valuable material, which they asserted had been bestowed upon them by the Great Spirit for the making of pipes exclusively. In our day an old Ojibway Indian, especially skilled in the work, has a name signifying “he who makes pipes,” and carved pipe-bowls of catlinite are usually sold for from $1 to $10 apiece; as much as $20, however, is occasionally paid for a particularly large and finely carved specimen. This substance is also worked up into charms and other small ornaments which are sold to tourists, the annual sales of all descriptions amounting to some $10,000 annually. Catlinite takes a fine polish and is easily worked; a peculiarly attractive variety is red with white and gray spots.
HINDU WEARING A COLLECTION OF ANCESTRAL PEBBLES AS AMULETS
The popular fancy for the “Fairy Stones” from a peak of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Patrick County, Virginia, is said to be directly traceable to the tale, “Trail of the Lonesome Pine,” by John Fox, Jr., who makes one of these pretty staurolite crystals exercise an important influence over the destinies of his hero and heroine. This was cleverly utilized by the manager of a New York theatre, when he gave a souvenir performance of a dramatized version of the story, by presenting one of these “Fairy Stones” to each lady in the audience, a gift not only in perfect rapport with the play, but one highly appreciated by the recipients, few of whom were not unconsciously influenced by the symbolic half-religious, half-mythical quality ascribed to this attractive little gem.
Collections of stones and pebbles, often of little or no intrinsic value but supposed to possess occult powers, are handed down from father to son in many Hindu families of the poorer class. The accompanying illustration shows an aged Hindu, as he appeared to a recent traveller, decorated with such stones to the number of about three hundred on a ceremonial occasion. In this case they were all pierced and threaded on cords, so as to be attached to the person, and the old man proudly declared that, thousands of years ago, one of his ancestors was a playmate of the god Krishna, who had bestowed the stones upon him as a special mark of divine favor.
The presence of erratic boulders was accounted for by popular legend in a variety of ways. Sometimes it was declared that the Virgin or a saint, while bearing an enormous stone through the air to be used in the construction of a church, had learned on the way that the church was completed and the stone no longer needed, and immediately let it drop to the earth.[[60]]
A stone having the rude form of a chair or seat, and known as Canna’s Stone, enjoyed repute in Wales for its curative powers. It was in a field in close proximity to the church of Llangan, Carmarthenshire, which owed its foundation to St. Canna. Near this stone is a well called Flynon Canna, the waters of which were believed to be a cure for ague. To make the cure effective, however, the patient, after imbibing the sacred water, had to sit for a time in Canna’s Stone, and if he dozed while sitting there this was considered to promise a speedy recovery. The combined treatment by well and stone was often repeated for several successive days and was occasionally prolonged for two or three weeks.[[61]]
That a child could be cured of disease by being passed through an aperture in one of the sacred stones that had formed part of a dolmen is shown in the case of a stone of this kind preserved in the church of Villers-Saint-Sépulcre, dept. Oise, France. There is another such stone in the same department, at Trie, used in a like way for the cure of feeble children or those suffering from rachitis. This reveals in a striking way the persistence of superstitious beliefs which were already condemned in 567 A.D. by the council of Tours, which prescribed that the eucharist should be refused to those who venerated these so-called sacred stones, and at a still earlier date, in 443 A.D., a council decree pronounced those bishops guilty of sacrilege who permitted the making of vows over these stones or the deposition of offerings thereon.[[62]]
Some of the stones of the druidic dolmens were called by the French peasants of a later age pierres tourniresses, or “whirling stones,” for it was solemnly asseverated that at midnight on Christmas Eve these stones gyrated on their base. A still stranger fancy was that some other stones of this class became fearfully thirsty at times, once every hundred days, or perhaps only once in a century, and then rolled off to the nearest stream to slake their thirst. Under others, again, it was believed that a hidden treasure reposed, watchfully guarded by a terrible dragon. However, on one night in the year, while the clock was striking twelve, he snatched a moment’s sleep, and whoever was clever enough and quick enough to make use of this chance could acquire untold riches.[[63]]
A strange belief prevails in and about Dourges (dept. Aube), France. On the top of a hill near this place is a chapel built in honor of St. Estapin, and in close proximity to this chapel are rocks with many irregular hollows of such varying shapes and forms that almost any part of the human body can be thrust into the openings. On the 6th of August in each year, those from the neighborhood suffering from illness or disability of any kind come hither, and, after having made their way as best they can nine times around the chapel, proceed to the platform whereon are the wonder-working stones, and introduce the afflicted part of their body into the appropriate opening in one of the rocks. The result is said to be an immediate cure of the trouble, however serious this may be, one experiment being sufficient.[[64]]
Stones of peculiar shape or marked color are those to which popular fancy has most often attributed a certain sanctity or power. Instances of this may be found in the Scottish isles. Thus, on the island of Arran in the Firth of Clyde, a green stone of approximately spherical form had acquired great repute for its healing virtue, especially for those having pains in the side. When this stone was laid upon the seat of the trouble, the pain would disappear. This, however, was not the only use to which it was put, for oaths were taken upon it, proving the presence of a certain animistic belief in the islanders’ minds, as though some spirit dwelt in or animated the stone and would take vengeance on a perjuror. A still better proof of this was the idea that the green stone of Arran would bring victory to a leader if he bore it with him and cast it into the enemies’ ranks at the decisive moment of a conflict, as is said to have been done by the Lord of the Isles. Alongside of this green stone may be placed a blue stone credited in the Scotch island of Fladda with the possession of like healing power, and on which also oaths were taken.[[65]]
A large, flat stone in St. Andrew’s on the isle of Guernsey is stated to have borne a somewhat humorously misleading French inscription. This ran: “Celui qui me tournera, Son temps point ne perdra,” which has been freely rendered:
To him who turns me up I say
His labor won’t be thrown away.
This tempting promise, interpreted as a sign that some buried treasure was hidden in the ground beneath the stone, finally induced some one to devote much toil and time to the difficult task of turning the stone over. What, however, was his chagrin and disgust when the under side presented the words: “Tourner je voulais, Car lassée j’étais” (I longed to turn, because I was so tired). Whether the practical joker who originated the inscription was present to enjoy the success of his joke is not revealed.[[66]]
To a mass of quartz at Jerbourg, Guernsey Island, local fancy has attached a wild legend, which finds expression in the strange designation of the stone as “The Devil’s Claw.” The old Chronique de Normandie, which, although written much earlier, was first printed in 1576 at Rouen, recounts under date of 797 A.D. that Duke Richard, when on his way from one of his strongholds to a manor where dwelt a damsel of surpassing beauty, was assailed by the Evil One; but, like a second St. Michael, Duke Richard overcame his dangerous antagonist. Seeing that he could not prevail by force, the Devil had recourse to one of his most perilous wiles, and changed himself into a beautiful, richly attired maiden. In this disguise he lured Duke Richard to the seashore and induced him to enter a boat and put out to sea. He thus spirited the duke away to the lonely isle of Guernsey, and at the landing spot, where the Devil finally seized his too-confiding prey, stands this mass of quartz, a deep black splash running right across, indicating in popular fancy the mark left by the devil’s claws.[[67]]
A solitary boulder standing on a heath in North Germany is the subject of a curious legend illustrating the superstitious reverence inspired by the thunder. Once upon a time a bridal procession was traversing the heath when a violent thunder-storm broke out. Taking no heed of this, the musicians who accompanied the procession continued to play their gay and festive music, and as a punishment for this lack of respect the God of Thunder changed the whole party into an immense rock.[[68]]
An erratic boulder lying in midstream in the River Ferse, in West Prussia, at a bend it makes between Peplin and Eichwald, is known in legend as the Teuffelsstein (Devil’s Stone). It can only be reached by swimming to it, the part above the surface of the water measuring 26¼ feet in circumference, the height from the bed of the stream being 8¼ feet. A thick growth of alders on the banks of the Ferse at this point casts strange and sharp shadows over the gleaming surface of the block which is a biotitic gneiss. Legend tells that the Devil once tried to wreck the tower of the church at Peplin by hurling this mass of rock at it, but just as he had it poised in the air and was about to cast it forth the church bells began to ring the call for early mass, and he was forced to let the boulder drop. Another version is that he really threw it, but that it fell short of its mark.[[69]]
Near Hasselager in Denmark there is an immense boulder about 150 feet in circumference and 32 feet in height. Of this stone legend tells that a witch became so enraged at the fact that the steeple of the church at Svinninge was used by sailors as a landmark, that she picked up the stone and hurled it at the church, but missed her aim. As the boulder is estimated to weigh 1000 tons, this “witch” must have been regarded as a superhuman personality. The legend seems to indicate that she profited by the shipwrecks which were only too frequent on this rocky coast, and grudged the poor sailors the good service rendered them by the prominent steeple.
A rock in Ardmore Bay, Ireland, is known as the St. Declan Stone, after the first bishop of Ardmore, who came to Ireland even before the arrival of the great St. Patrick. This rock is believed by the peasants to be endowed with great and occult powers, and the legend tells that it was carried through the air from Rome to its present resting place in the bay, at the time St. Declan was erecting his church at Ardmore. The fact that the stone rests upon a number of smaller ones renders it possible for people to squeeze their way under it at low tide, and those who pass beneath it three times are believed to have earned the special favor of St. Declan.[[70]]
A mass of calcareous stone in a village called Piada de Roland, situated in the commune of Toufailles (dept. Tarn et Garonne), France, shares with some other similar stones in this region the curious name of Roland’s Foot (Piada de Roland). The one preserved in Toufailles measures 70 cm. × 47 cm. × 50 cm., and bears a natural imprint having the form of a foot. Legend accounts for this by the tale that the hero Roland once jumped from this stone to another at Sept Albres and in taking this tremendous leap thrust his foot down so strongly upon its support as to leave an imprint on the solid rock. For a time the “Piada de Roland” was kept in a cow-house—not a remarkably honorable place of deposit—but after the death of one of the cows a sorcerer advised the stone should be broken and removed, as a precautionary measure; this is said to have happened but thirty years ago, showing how deeply rooted such superstitious ideas are among the peasantry in out-of-the-way parts of France.[[71]]
Another rock-imprint, this time simulating that made by the hoof of a horse, is to be seen toward the edge of the abyss of Padirac (dept. Lot). Here again a local legend has been evolved to explain the imprint. We are told that the attention of both Satan and St. Martin had been powerfully attracted to the region, each strenuously seeking to gain possession of the souls of those who died, Satan of course wishing to bear them off with him to the depths of the infernal regions, while St. Martin cherished the fond hope of bringing them to Heaven. Unhappily the sins of the inhabitants of the region so much outweighed their merits that the Devil was almost invariably successful. Once upon a time, when he was riding off to his lurid realm, bearing with him a sackful of lost souls, he met St. Martin, who was full of grief at the fact that he himself had not a single soul to carry heavenward. Knowing, however, that Satan was passionately fond of gaming, he proposed that they should play a game the stake of which should be the sackful of souls. Satan consented, trusting to his powers of trickery, but all his deceptions proved vain, and the precious souls became the property of the saint. Enraged at losing the stakes, the Devil stamped on the ground, and an immense abyss opened up, threatening to engulf St. Martin; however, the latter put up a prayer to God, and spurred on his steed to a supreme and successful effort at escape, but one of the hoofs struck the rock with such force that it made an indentation therein figuring the clear outlines of a horse’s hoof.[[72]]
KILLING A DRAGON TO EXTRACT ITS PRECIOUS STONE
From Johannis de Cuba’s “Ortus Sanitatis,” Strassburg, 1483. See page 16.
NATURALLY MARKED STONE
From Valentini, “Museum museorum,” Frankfurt am Mayn, 1714. Collection
of James I, of England; now in Copenhagen. See page 45.
The Kiowa have a sacred stone whose form suggests the head and bust of a man. This image, called taimé, has long been considered a kind of palladium of the tribe. It is preserved in a box made of stiff dressed rawhide (parflèche) and was only shown once a year, at the annual Sun Dance. As this sacred dance has not been performed since 1887, the taimé of the Kiowa has not been viewed by mortal eye since that time, not even the custodian of the treasure having the privilege of opening the box, except on the occasion of the ceremonial dance above mentioned.[[73]] Whether this stone has been rudely fashioned into its present shape, or whether its natural form suggested its use as a simulacrum of some deity, has not been determined; it is evidently not of meteoric origin as were many of the curiously shaped stones venerated as images of the gods in ancient times, in both Europe and Asia.
In the rock of St. Gowan’s chapel in Wales was a natural cavity upon which the name of the Expanding Stone was bestowed by popular tradition, because the strange fancy prevailed that this stone automatically adapted itself to the size of anyone who entered the cavity. The legend ran that once, during the Pagan persecutions, when a fugitive Christian, hotly pursued, reached this rock it opened up of its own accord so that he could slip into it, and then closed about him so as to hide him effectually from his enemies. This Expanding Stone was believed to manifest its magic power by bringing to pass the wish expressed by anyone who entered it, provided he did not change his wish while he turned around within it.[[74]]
The natives of the French colony of New Caledonia in the southern Pacific, attach special importance to the fortuitous shape of stones in using them for talismans or amulets. According to their form such stones are considered to procure favorable effects against famine, madness, or death; to induce sunshine or rain, or else to bring good luck in fishing or in sailing, each special use being suggested by some different form, the color also being in some cases a determining factor. For the purpose of securing a better yield from fruit-trees a stone having the approximate shape of the fruit or with markings similar to those on fruit or tree is the one indicated by nature as the appropriate talisman, as in the case of the cocoanut palm, where a stone marked with black lines is the one chosen. Sometimes two different talismanic stones are used in this practice, a smaller one figuring the unripe fruit; when the tree begins to bear, the small stone is buried at its foot, and as soon as the fruit begins to mature, the small stone is removed and the larger one, representing the ripe fruit, is buried in its place.[[75]]
The Scotch of a century or more ago are said to have considered that an isolated stone or boulder, firmly fixed in the earth, possessed powers of a peculiar sort, and some such stones were used to cure bruises and strains and reduce swellings.[[76]] As it was also thought that a blow from a stone of this type was especially hurtful, this would be another case of homœopathic treatment of which so many and various examples are afforded by the superstitious use of stones and gems, as well as of other objects to which certain advantageous qualities were attributed.
Small stone boulders have been made use of by ejected peasants in Fermanagh, Ireland, in a magical incantation designed to draw down a curse upon a merciless landlord. For this purpose the peasant would collect a number of such stones, pile them up on his hearth as he would have piled turf sods, and then put up a petition that all manner of bad luck and misfortune might befall the landlord and his descendants to remote generations. Hereupon he would gather up the stones again, and, carrying them off, would scatter them about in bog-holes, pools or streams, so that they should never be brought together again.[[77]] This was evidently done in the belief that the curse could only be raised if a counter-invocation were pronounced over the same collection of stones. An allusion to a custom of turning stones about while reciting a formula of malediction is contained in the following lines by Dr. Samuel Ferguson:
They hurled their curse against the King,
They cursed him in his flesh and bones,
And even in the mystic ring,
They turn’d the malediction stones.
Of all “magic stones” none seem better to deserve this designation than those mysterious and fascinating mineral specimens, veritable lusus Naturæ, bearing imprinted upon them by nature’s hand some likeness of the human face or form. The grandeur and the overwhelming power of the material world are probably as much or even more felt in our prosaic age than they were in the earliest times, but this sentiment is sometimes coupled with a sense of distrust—happily neither general nor permanent—as to the presence in this tremendous and inspiring aggregate of forces of any distinct and definite evidence of the working of an intelligence closely similar to our own. It seems not unlikely that to this half-distrust is in great part due the fascination exercised by these naturally designed stones. We know, indeed, that when examined critically by the mineralogist, their strange markings become explicable as the results of fortuitous stratifications and juxtapositions, but to our instinctive appreciation they offer so close and startling an analogy to the artistic reproductions consciously made by the hand of man, guided by his experience and intelligence, that we are almost invariably impressed with a keener sense of our kinship with nature.
Some very characteristic and interesting specimens of these natural designs were at one time in the possession of Queen Victoria, many of them having been formerly among the treasures in the valuable and extensive collection of pearls and precious stones carefully gathered together by the famous banker and connoisseur, Henry Philip Hope. Quite recently (April 20, 21, 1914) these objects, which had passed into the J. E. Hodgkin Collection, were sold at Christie’s in London. Perhaps the most remarkable is thus described by B. Hertz in the Hope Catalogue:[[78]]
No. 62. A very beautiful lusus, in white and brown agate, representing a miniature face and neck, with light brown hair and white chaplet, surrounded by a dark brown ground colour.
So singularly natural and artistic is this strange gem, that it is difficult to banish the conviction that we are not gazing upon a fine example of a miniature done by an impressionist.[[79]] Another interesting, though somewhat less notable example, was a polished flint, of a brownish-gray hue, bearing a half-front miniature of an aged head and face marked in a light brownish-white;[[80]] still another offered the representation of a human head, the face half turned away; this was also a flint, the groundwork of a light horn-color, the design being of a still lighter shade of the same color.[[81]]
While nearly all these natural designs are in the flat, occasional examples of relief or intaglio are recorded. As an instance may be noted a remarkable double gem or medallion said to have been revealed on splitting open a clump of copper ore from the Bottendorf copper mines. On each of the two halves was marked the image of a male human head, dressed with a peruke, but while on one side the representation was in relief, on the opposite half it was in intaglio.[[82]]
A remarkable find of three of these naturally marked stones is stated to have been made in the river Theiss, near the town of Winterhut, in 1556, “on a Monday after the festival of St. Gall.” On one of these flint pebbles was depicted a cross, a sword and a rod; the two others bore respectively a cross and the Burgundian arms, all being as clearly defined as though the work of the human hand.[[83]]
These smaller natural pictures were, however, greatly surpassed in effectiveness by some most extraordinary representations on slabs of stone, frequently on marble slabs, the strange arrangement of the veinings constituting veritable pictures of considerable extent and marvellously deceptive quality. Thus in the church of San Lorenzo in Florence was to be seen a natural marble on which were depicted two men bearing a bunch of grapes on a rod.[[84]] Another marble slab, preserved in the Danish Collection in Copenhagen and originally owned by James I of England, presented in most beautiful colors an image of a crucifix.[[85]]
To the natural image found in a specimen of copper ore may be added a much more remarkable picture discovered in a piece of iron ore. This was found on October 8, 1669, by a miner of the Innesberg mines. The clump of ore weighed about two pounds and when the miner split it open with a blow of his hammer, he was startled to see on the upper half a strange and marvellous design. Calling up a companion, he exclaimed: “Look here! Here is the Blessed Virgin on this stone!” On examining the other half, the same design appeared there also. This remarkable find is said to have been recorded in the book of the mine, the stone itself having been delivered to the German imperial inspectors.[[86]]
It is well to bear in mind that the number of these lusus naturæ seemed very much larger in the eyes of writers of a few centuries ago than to us to-day, for the numerous petrifactions, showing a great variety of animal and vegetable forms, were for a long period included in the same category with the stones bearing curiously deceptive markings or veinings. Much ingenuity was expended by early observers in the attempt to explain the cause of these phenomena. The learned Jesuit, Athanasius Kircher, for example, after having proved experimentally that designs treated with certain chemical agents could be made to impress figures upon stones, took refuge in the strange hypothesis that pictures made on wood or some soft material by primitive miners had been left in the mine and with the lapse of time had slipped down into crevices in the rock, and, becoming tightly wedged in, had impressed the design on the contact-rock; or else he suggested that the original material on which the design had been made might in process of time have, by some unknown means, been converted into marble.[[87]] As a striking example of a picture of this class, Kircher notes and figures an image naturally designed on a stone slab in St. Peter’s in Rome and bearing a remarkable likeness to the Blessed Virgin of Loreto.[[88]]
The electric or magnetic gems, tourmaline, amber, and loadstone, possess not only great scientific interest, but demonstrate the fact that a certain energy really does proceed from some of these fair, ornamental objects, an energy that produces a positive action from without upon the human body. This may well serve to make us less resolutely sceptical as to the possible presence in gem-stones of some other forms of emanation not as yet susceptible of scientific determination.
The supersensitiveness of the innocent child-soul to the most delicate impressions, and hence to the radiations or emanations from precious stones, is well brought out in the pretty tale by Saxe Holme (Helen Hunt Jackson), entitled “My Tourmaline.”[[89]] The particular specimen here immortalized was one of the finest from the famous Mount Mica deposits in the State of Maine. One day, while on a country ramble, the little heroine’s eye is caught by the color and sparkle of a brilliant crystal lodged in the gnarled roots of an old tree. In springing forward to secure this pretty treasure the girl trips on the outstanding roots, falls, and sprains her leg very seriously, so that she is laid up for six weeks. However, the beautiful crystal is her great consolation through the long, dreary weeks, and, strange to say, she comes to feel that it has a kind of life in it. This is manifested to her and also to some others, on touching the stone, by a pricking or tingling sensation in the hand; but to the child the sensations excited by the wonderful crystal, as perfectly formed as though cut by a lapidary, red at one end, green at the other, with a separating band of white, are much more pronounced. When it is placed in the little silken bag that has been made to hold it, and is laid against her cheek, her feverish restlessness gradually disappears and gives place to tranquil sleep. More than this, she is aware of a species of subconscious sympathy with the tourmaline. So intense is this sympathy that although the child consented to part with her crystal that it might be offered as a unique specimen to a foreign museum, and was heart-broken to learn that through some carelessness it had been lost while being taken thither, she recognized its presence long years after, when, travelling in Europe as a young bride, she entered the cabinet of an enthusiastic collector to view his specimens, and was in no wise surprised when she really found her “Stonie” there among his prized tourmalines.
In connection with this pretty recital it is interesting to note that the first chance observation of the attractive qualities of tourmalines is said to have been made in Amsterdam by a group of Dutch children whose attention had been attracted by a number of tourmaline crystals brought from the Orient, and who were puzzled to see bits of ash and straw attracted to the stones. This came to the knowledge of some Dutch lapidaries, who for a time called the stone Aschentrekker, or “Ash-Attractor.”[[90]] Our name tourmaline is derived from turmali, the name given the stone by the natives of Ceylon.
There seems some little likelihood that certain examples of the gem called lychnis and noted by Pliny may have been varieties of the tourmaline. As the first tourmalines brought to modern Europe came to Holland from Ceylon, we might conjecture that those kinds of lychnis said by Pliny to have been brought from India had a like origin. Of these Indian specimens, the finest examples of this gem, one kind resembled the carbuncle or ruby, while another bore the designation Ionia because its color was like that of the violet (in Greek ion). The most striking peculiarity of the lychnis was its power to attract straws or bits of paper, when it had been heated by the sun’s rays or by hand-friction.[[91]]
Such is the confusion in the statements made by the early Greek and Latin writers as to the emerald, under which generic name they seem to have included almost all green stones of any ornamental or other value, that we cannot absolutely reject the conjecture[[92]] that Theophrastus (third century B.C.), the earliest of these writers on precious stones, might have referred to specimens of green tourmaline, when he states that the true emerald appeared to have been produced from jasper, as one of the Cyprian specimens was said to have consisted of one-half jasper and the other half emerald, the metamorphosis as yet being incomplete.[[93]] We admit that if Theophrastus uses the word jasper here to signify the reddish variety, we would have the combination of green and red zones in a single crystal sometimes observable in tourmaline. How this can be reconciled with the previous statement of the same author that the Cyprian “emeralds” which came from the copper mines of that island were chiefly used for soldering gold, and hence seem to have been of the class of mineral called chrysocolla by ancient writers, is, however, not easy to suggest.[[94]]
The so-called Brazilian emeralds mentioned by the Dutch mineralogist, Johann de Laet, as having been found shortly before 1647 in mines near Spiritus Sanctus, may perhaps have been green tourmalines. These crystals were described by Gesner as of cylindrical form, striated, and of a vitreous lustre; their color was like that of the prase and they were transparent. Although De Laet adds the assertion that the Oriental emerald (green corundum) was as hard as the sapphire, the Brazilian emeralds approached more closely to the Oriental in point of hardness than did emeralds from any other source of supply;[[95]] and green sapphires have never been found in Brazil, while green tourmalines have been.
The earliest published work in which the electric properties of tourmaline are noted appears to be an anonymous or quasi anonymous treatise published in 1707, certain initial letters of the quaint title being italicized to indicate the initials of the author’s name.[[96]] The first scientist to derive the action of the so-called Aschentrekker or “Ash-Attractor” from electric energy is said to have been the great Linnæus, who bestowed upon the tourmaline the name of the “Electrical Stone.”[[97]]
The attractive properties of the tourmaline are said to have been first brought to scientific notice by M. Louis Lémery, in a report made during 1717 to the French Academy of Sciences; however, Lémery was inclined to attribute them to magnetic influence. That these phenomena of attraction and repulsion were really due to the electric properties of the stone was first clearly brought out by the German physicist, Franz Ulrich Theodor Aepinus, and his conclusions were communicated to the Berlin Academy of Sciences in 1756.[[98]] Aepinus made his experiments upon two specimens of tourmaline from Ceylon, which had been furnished him by Lehmann, a fellow-member of the Berlin Academy, who, as Aepinus frankly admits, first drew his attention to the electric action of the stone. That not only friction but heat also should develop the electric energy, both positive and negative, of the tourmaline, serves to differentiate it from many other potentially electric substances, in the case of which friction alone is effective.
A SIMPLE APPARATUS FOR ILLUSTRATING THE ELECTRIC PROPERTIES OF THE TOURMALINE
The stone is suspended from a hollow rod and will be attracted by the finger, if the latter be brought within a short distance of the tourmaline. When the stone has been slightly heated, its positive electricity will draw toward it the heart-shaped piece of paper, just as amber attracts paper, or magnetic iron does iron filings.
The specimen shown by M. Lémery to the French Academy of Sciences in 1717 is stated to have come from “a river in the Island of Ceylon,” and is described as being of small size, flat, orbicular, quite thin, of a brown color, and smooth brilliant surface.[[99]] Its peculiar property of attracting and then repelling ashes or iron filings as well as bits of paper, was duly noted. This specimen had cost M. Lémery 15 livres. After reciting the constant repulsion and attraction exercised by a magnet upon the needle, the attraction by the opposite pole, and repulsion by the same pole, he proceeds to remark that this Cinghalese stone acted quite differently, since it first attracted and then repulsed the same object presented in the same way. This intermittent or irregular action was in his opinion to be explained by the theory that a vortex was intermittently developed in the substance. As it begins the small bodies are attracted, when it ceases they remain stationary, but when it is renewed “and there emanates from the stone a material analogous to the magnetic emanation” then the bodies are repulsed. Another peculiarity was that the body which had been repulsed could not again be attracted, whence the conclusion was arrived at that the stone’s repellent force was superior to its attractive power. These necessarily somewhat inexact observations are interesting as marking one of the earliest attempts to explain these phenomena, even although the explanation is faulty.
The great French crystallographer, Abbé Haüy, relates his experiments on a tourmaline crystal.[[100]] He set this crystal in steel clamps, with a long stem which was inserted in a wooden handle, and then subjected the tourmaline to the heat of a brasier. As the heat augmented and penetrated the stone, its natural electric force became decomposed, the two component fluids being forced to separate from each other. It was now necessary to cool the tourmaline off a little; when too much heated the electrical phenomena were interrupted; they were also diminished in intensity when the stone became cool again. The perfect crystal chosen for experiment clearly showed the negative and positive electrical poles; even the smallest pieces showed this, and, indeed, if a very small piece were broken off the positively electric side of a crystal, it would preserve this positive electricity and soon develop a negative electricity also.
We may be somewhat loath to doubt the tale that little Dutch children were the first to note what to them was the queer action of some bits of tourmaline, but preference should probably be given to the statement that the discovery of the electric phenomena induced by heating in these stones was due to the fact that some Dutch jewellers put specimens of tourmaline in the fire to test their hardness, and then found that the stones attracted or repelled the ashes of the fire.[[101]]
Toward the middle of the eighteenth century Dr. Haberden, of London, confirmed the deductions of Lémery and the somewhat later experiments of the German physicist Aepinus, and the gay world of London took up the idea, causing the new stone to become a great favorite with the fashionable. One of Hogarth’s inimitable designs depicts a spendthrift fop who has just been arrested while his attention was riveted on the strange phenomena shown by the tourmaline.
In view of the important experiments made by Benjamin Franklin in the then almost unexplored field of electricity, it is easy to understand that the accounts of the newly-discovered electric properties of the tourmaline should have possessed considerable interest for him. This is testified to by a letter he addressed to Dr. William Haberden, June 7, 1759.[[102]] Herein he expresses his thanks for two tourmalines his correspondent had sent him, and states that he is returning the smaller one. Of the electric phenomena he writes that he had heard some “ingenious gentlemen abroad” had denied the negative electricity displayed by one side of a tourmaline, but he believes the failure to observe could be explained by defective cutting of the specimens used, the positive and negative planes having perhaps been obliquely placed; to obviate this he suggests that the positive and negative sides should be accurately determined before the operation of cutting begins. The larger of the specimens sent by Dr. Haberden was retained by Franklin, who had it mounted on a pivot in a ring, so that either side could be turned outward at will. He notes as a curious circumstance that when he wore this ring, the natural heat of the finger sufficed to charge the stone, causing it to attract light bodies. Several of his experiments were made with a cork ball suspended by a thread, and he claims that the attractive force of the positive face was increased by coating it with gold-leaf attached to the stone by white of egg. This greater effect he supposed “to be occasioned by the united force of the different parts of the face collected and acting together through the metal.”
While the various corundum gems, ruby, sapphire, Oriental topaz, Oriental amethyst, etc., offer a remarkable instance of the many varieties of beautiful coloration observable in a practically identical substance, no single gem-mineral can be said to equal tourmaline in this respect, more especially, however, in the combination of several colors sometimes disposed in bands, at other times in concentric circles in the same crystal. When to this we add its peculiar electric qualities, we may truly say that a fine tourmaline answers our idea of what a talismanic gem or a gem-amulet should be better than any other of the beautiful crystals with which bountiful nature has provided us. These most attractive stones are to be found in widely separated regions on the earth’s surface, as fine examples have been discovered in the State of Minas Geraes, Brazil, and in our own land, in Maine and California especially. Where the color is homogeneous we may have the splendid red or rose-colored variety called rubellite, from its resemblance to the ruby, or the blue tourmaline gem named indicolite.
In times of old there was a belief that stones of various kinds would guard against the assaults of evil in the form of witchcraft, disease, and other disagreeable visitations. It was a warlike period in which peace was an unheard-of doctrine, and now that the idea of peace has become one of the ideals of present-day conditions, it is interesting to know that nature has furnished us with a stone at once beautiful, interesting, and illustrating the great fundamental principle of unity and peace.
The Peace Stone is formed by the union in one crystal of the green and the red tourmaline, with an intervening band or zone of white, the latter strikingly beautiful effect being due to the combination at this point of the red coloring matter, manganese, and the iron constituent, the source of the green hue; these two materials, by their union, neutralize each other, furnishing the transparent, colorless vein or zone. A slightly different combination of colors appears in a fine crystal, found some years ago at Mount Mica, Oxford County, Maine; this even offers a kind of “triple alliance,” as it shows blue in its lower half, passing through white and pink to a grass-green at the upper end.[[103]]
These three hues combined in one body, in indissoluble union in spite of the differences of quality and color, yet represent one principle. This action of manganese in neutralizing the iron is well known to glass-makers; otherwise white glass could not be made. It would all be greenish in tint were it not for the use of oxide of manganese, or “glass-maker’s soap,” as it is termed, which neutralizes the production of a green tint by the iron and makes the white hue.
This beautifully symbolic stone is found in Paris, Maine, in San Diego County, California, and in Brazil. At times the outer edge of the stone is green, a transparent white zone surrounding the interior red zone, the whole looking for all the world like a section of watermelon, and hence it is sometimes called the “Watermelon Stone.” Then again, the colors are joined in longitudinal strips, showing them side by side. This variety of tourmaline, although rare, is not especially costly, and is one more addition to the stones of sentiment, and more especially to those appropriate as symbols of our fair ideal, universal peace.
We can see symbolized in them the great and consoling fact that, however marked may be the differences between any two peoples, they need not be cause for enmity, but may instead become true and enduring sources of peace and bonds of union. The characteristic talents of each one will supplement and complete those of the other, so that working together in harmony they may accomplish far more for each other and for humanity in general than either could do singly.
At an early date amber was brought from the Baltic coast to Rome, and Tacitus states that those who collected it called it glæsum, a name later applied to the glass introduced into that region by Roman traders. The natives knew nothing of the nature or growth of amber, and had no use for the material, only collecting it for export to Rome, where it commanded such a high price as to excite their astonishment. Tacitus gives in the following words his theory of the origin and character of amber—his chief error being due to his belief that the substance was of very recent formation.[[104]]
Now you must know that amber is a juice of trees, since various creatures, some of them winged, are often found in it. They have become entangled in the liquid and then inclosed when the matter hardened. Therefore I believe that, as incense and balsam are exuded in the remote East, so in the luxuriant groves and islands of the West are juices which are forced out by the sun close to them. These flow into the neighboring sea and are washed up by the tempestuous waves on the opposite shore. If you test the quality of amber with fire, it may be lighted like a torch and burns with a small, well-nourished flame; then it is resolved into a glutinous mass resembling pitch or resin.
Both Juvenal[[105]] and Martial[[106]] relate that effeminate Romans used to hold balls of amber in their hands to cool them during the summer heat. If any such agreeable sensation was really experienced, it must have been due to the well-known electric properties of this substance. It is stated that the Chinese often place pieces of amber on or in their pillows,[[107]] a use that may have been suggested by the same considerations.
As a proof of the extravagant value set upon amber by the Romans of the first century, Pliny notes that a very diminutive figure of a man, cut out of this substance, sold for a higher figure than did a healthy, vigorous slave. The popularity of this material was also attested by the fact that in the gay world of Rome the term “amber hair” was used to designate a rare and peculiar shade that became fashionable in this period.[[108]] It seems probable that this modish shade was somewhat lighter than the “Titian hair” once so much favored, although the difference may not have been very great.
A change of hue in amber was thought to portend a waning of love on the part of the giver, as is shown by the following not especially melodious lines from “The Fruits of Jealousy” published by Richard Tofte in 1615:[[109]]
Thy tokens which to me thou sent
In time may make thee to repent;
Thy gifts do groan (bestow’d on me)
For grief that they thee guilty see.
The amber bracelet thou me gave
(For fear thou shouldst shortly wave[[110]])
From yellow turned is to pale,
A sign thou shortly will be stale.
Not only for curative purposes and for general use as an amulet was amber prized, but an amber necklace was sometimes regarded as an especially auspicious decoration for a bride at her wedding, as is shown by an exceptionally fine necklace of facetted amber beads from Brunswick, Germany, made in the eighteenth century.
Our earliest authority on the curative use of amber, the great encyclopædist Pliny, states that in his day the female peasants of the valley of the Po, in northern Italy, might be seen wearing amber necklaces, principally as ornaments, but also because of their remedial powers; for even at this early period it was generally believed that amber had most excellent effects in diseases of the throat and tonsils. The peasants of this region were especially subject to such disorders, and Pliny conjectures that they were caused by the different sorts of water in the neighborhood of the Alps.[[111]] He probably refers not only to diseases of the throat, properly so called, but also to a swelling of the glands of the neck, the goître with which so many of the peasants living on the slopes of the Alps, and in other mountainous regions of central Europe, are afflicted.
The golden-hued amber was called chryselectrum by Callistratus, as cited by Pliny. This was said to attract the flame and to ignite if it came in contact with the fire. If worn on the neck it was a cure for fevers; if powdered and mixed with honey and oil of roses it was beneficial for dimness of vision, and its powder, whether taken by itself or in water with gum mastic, remedied diseases of the stomach.[[112]] In ancient and medieval times the fear of poison being administered in food or drink was very great, and any substance that was credited with the power to show the presence of poison, by some change in clearness or color, was highly valued. An amber cup was said to reveal the admixture of any of the various kinds of poison with the liquid it contained.[[113]]
The use of amber as a preventive of erysipelas finds a defender in Rev. C. W. King, who writes as follows:
NECKLACE OF FACETED AMBER BEADS
German. Eighteenth century.
That the wearing an amber necklace will keep off the attacks of erysipelas in a person subject to them has been proved by repeated experiments beyond the possibility of doubt. Its action here cannot be explained; but its efficacy in defence of the throat against chills is evidently due to its extreme warmth when in contact with the skin and the circle of electricity so maintained.[[114]]
The electrical property of amber was remarked as early as 600 B.C. by the Ionic philosopher Thales, and from this observation may be dated the beginnings of the study of electric phenomena.
That faith in the magic powers of amber beads still exists is illustrated in the case of an old Russian Jewess who recently died in one of our charitable institutions. This woman is said to have reached the age of one hundred and six years, and she ascribed her extraordinary longevity to the possession of a necklace of very large amber beads, which had been given her by her mother, who also lived more than a hundred years. The daughter, a few days before her death, bestowed this treasured heirloom upon her daughter, for it is generally believed that the virtues of gems largely depend upon their being received as gifts.
In northern Germany, also, for more than a century a string of amber beads was looked upon as a favorite and necessary gift. The writer has seen hundreds of these strings, many of which have been worn for one, two, and sometimes more generations. The beads are round and usually facetted; however, they have been abraded against each other for so long that they are often flat disks, and a string originally fifteen or sixteen inches long will be twelve, and often only nine inches in length, so much of the original spheres having worn away.
A well-known physician of the sixteenth century, Johann Meckenbach, claimed, in 1548, to have discovered the process of producing oil of amber. Although Meckenbach was not entitled to the credit he claimed, as the experiment had already been successfully made, he gained great repute by this means, and when he communicated to Duke Albrecht of Prussia the secret of his process, the rulers of other lands overwhelmed the duke with requests for a supply of the precious remedy. Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, sent a special messenger the long journey to Berlin, twice in a year, for a few flasks of the oil, which was regarded as a cure for many diseases.[[115]] The oil of amber—oleum succini of the Pharmacopœia—has maintained its repute as a cure for various affections up to the present day. In some forms of gout and rheumatism it relieves the inflammation and pain in the joints; and its antispasmodic action makes it a valuable remedy in cases of asthma, whooping-cough, hysteria, bronchitis, and infantile convulsions.[[116]]
An early version of the strange tale that ships were attracted by masses of rocks, or even mountains of loadstone, is given by Palladius (c. 367–c. 431 A.D.). He relates that the loadstone was produced on a group of islands called the Maniolæ, which were on the route to Taprobane (Ceylon), and continues, “if any ship constructed with iron nails approached these islands they were drawn by the power of the loadstone and their course was arrested. For this reason those voyaging to Taprobane use ships especially put together with wooden pegs.” Probably the legend arose from the fact that wood was often used in the case of vessels trading in this region, because iron was scarce and expensive. This is the view of Procopius, who found the same story still current in the sixth century.[[117]]
It has been noted as a curious fact that none of the ancient writers who treat of the loadstone recognized that the attractive energy exerted by this substance on iron was also exerted by iron upon the loadstone; on the contrary, they constructed many ingenious hypotheses to explain why this was not the case.[[118]] The strange fancy that in the presence of a diamond a piece of loadstone was robbed of its attractive force, must have arisen from an observation of the well-known electric properties of the first-named stone, and from the idea that the much more valuable stone should have the greater power. Here, as in many other cases, we see how little interest was taken in actual experiment by ancient writers, a pre-conceived idea of the eternal fitness of things being the main criterion.
Spaniards of the thirteenth century believed that the magnetic power of the loadstone would depart from it if it were steeped in the juice of leek or onion for three days; but the virtue would return to the stone if it were bathed in goat’s blood. This recalls the queer notion that the diamond could only be broken when moistened with goat’s blood, both fancies having their origin in the idea that goat’s, or rather ram’s blood, was endowed with warmth and vitality to a higher degree than other blood.
An ingenious magnetic oracle is described by De Boot.[[119]] This consisted of a round board, about the edge of which were marked the letters of the alphabet, while in the centre there stood a small wooden figure, set on a pivot, and holding extended in one hand a little wand. One foot of this figure was slightly advanced and within it was concealed a small iron ball. The experimenter held in his hand a wooden sceptre, with a powerful loadstone at its top, and as he touched with his sceptre the lower side of the board, beneath the spot on which any one of the letters was marked, the attraction exercised by the loadstone on the iron made the figure revolve on its pivot so that the little wand pointed toward the letter indicated. In this way any word could be spelled out and appropriate answers given to any question. The device would be too obvious at present, but in De Boot’s time it would have served well enough to mystify the spectators.
That the loadstone was highly esteemed in the sixteenth century was well versified by Robert Norman in “The Newe Attractive.”
THE MAGNES OR LOADSTONES CHALLENGE
Give place ye glittering sparkes, ye glimmering Diamonds bright,
Ye Rubies red, and Saphires brave, wherein ye most delight.
In breefe yee stones enricht, and burnisht all with gold,
Set forth in Lapidaries shops, for Jewels to be sold.
Give place, give place I say, your beautie, gleame, and glee,
Is all the vertue for the which, accepted so you bee.
Magnes, the Loadstone I, your painted sheaths defie,
Without my helpe, in Indian Seas the best of you might lye.
I guide the Pilots course, his helping hand I am,
The Mariner delights in me, so doth the Marchant man.
My vertue lies unknowne, my secrets hidden are,
By me the Court and Common-weale, are pleasured very farre.
No ship could sayle on seas, her course to runne aright,
Nor compasse shew the ready way, were Magnes not of might.
Blush then, and blemish all, bequeathe to mee thats due,
Your seates in golde, your price in plate, which Jewellers doo rewe.
Its I, its I alone, whom you usurpe upon,
Magnes my name, the Loadstone cald, the prince of stones alone.
If this you can denie, then seeme to make reply,
And let the Painefull sea-man judge, the which of us doth lye.
THE MARINER’S JUDGMENT
The Loadstone is the stone, the only stone alone,
Deserving praise above the rest, whose vertues are unknowne.
THE MARCHANT’S VERDICT
The diamond bright, the Saphire brave, are stones that beare the name,
But flatter not, and tell the troath, Magnes deserves the same.[[120]]
It was reported in the seventeenth century that ruptures were cured in Belgium by the help of the loadstone. The patient was first given a dose of iron filings, reduced to a very fine powder; thereupon a plaster made of crushed loadstone was applied externally to the affected part. This was said to produce a cure in the space of eight days.[[121]] Probably the plaster was believed to draw the iron filings or some emanation from them through the affected parts toward the surface.
In medieval Europe this mineral was greatly valued for its therapeutic virtues. Trotula, the first of the female physicians connected with the celebrated School of Salerno, the centre of medical culture in Europe in the Middle Ages, and who wrote a treatise on female diseases, recommended the use of the loadstone in childbirth. The stone was to be held in the right hand, and the learned lady asserted that the wearing of a coral necklace would aid its beneficent effect. Both these substances are prescribed for this use by the Oxford teacher, John Gadesden (1300), in his “Rosa Anglica.” Francisco Piemontese, who taught in Naples about 1340, also recommends the loadstone, but he directs that it be strewn with the ashes obtained by burning the hoof of an ass or a horse; according to this last authority, the stone should be held in the left hand.[[122]]
That wounds caused by burning could be healed if powdered loadstone were sprinkled over them was confidently taught even in the seventeenth century. However, some ill effects were occasionally remarked when the substance was used medicinally, for it sometimes produced melancholia. In this case an antidote was found in the emerald, and we are assured that if a solution made from this stone were taken thrice a day for nine consecutive days, the melancholia would pass away.[[123]]
In the sixteenth century in India, it was believed that a small quantity of loadstone taken internally preserved the vigor of youth, and Garcias ab Orta relates that a king of Ceylon, when an old man, ordered that cooking utensils of this material should be made for him, and had all his food cooked in these. Garcias claims to have this information direct from a Jew, Isaac of Cairo, who was ordered to make the vessels.[[124]]
A loadstone amulet for the cure of gout is stated to have been worn by a native of the English county of Essex. The stone was sewed up in a flannel covering to which was attached a black ribbon for suspension from the neck. Of course it was worn beneath the clothing, although the encasing flannel must have prevented direct contact with the skin. This piece of magnetic iron ore measured about an inch and a half in width, and was two-tenths of an inch thick. The patient, a Mr. Pelly, was an elderly man, who had suffered for some time from annually recurring attacks of gout which prostrated him for from three to four months. Learning of the reputed virtues of loadstones, more especially of those of Golconda, he sent to India for one and he is said to have been thereby relieved of his disease.[[125]]
Vignette from the “Lapidario de Alfonso X, Codice Original” (fol. 12). Published in Madrid, 1881. This design shows the finding of the “Stone of Sterility.” Author’s library.
In Persia a certain stone received the name of Shahkevheren or “King of Jewels,” for it was reputed to attract all other precious stones, as the loadstone did iron. The greatest of the Sassanian monarchs, Khusrau II (590–628), had occasion to test the power of this wonderful stone. He had lost a ring of great price in the river Tigris, near the spot where some time later the Mohammedans founded the city of Bagdad. Taking a shahkevheren the monarch attached it to a line and literally fished for his ring, using the magic stone as a bait. We are told that the ring was recovered, and this must have greatly added to the reputation of the “King of Jewels.”[[126]]
In the ninth century Arabic treatise, translated from an earlier Syriac text and falsely attributed to Aristotle, a number of fabulous stones are noted. All of these were said to have attractive properties, and as the loadstone attracted iron, they attracted various substances, each having its special affinity. First, we are told of the stone that attracted gold, then, in turn, of stones that attracted silver, copper, and other metals.[[127]] Probably the legend of the finding of these stones is based upon the employment of certain mineral substances in the purifying of gold, silver, etc. Among other fabulous or almost fabulous stones was one called askab, which, although of mean appearance, was able to break the diamond just as the diamond broke all other stones.[[128]] Have we here an allusion to the polishing of the diamond by its own dust? It is not improbable that this art, in an incomplete form, was known to the Hindus long before it was practised and perfected in Europe.
The stone that attracted hair was the lightest of all stones and very fragile; a piece as large as a man’s fist weighed but a drachm. It looked like a piece of fur, but when touched was found to be a stone. The strange powers of this extraordinary substance could easily be demonstrated, for if placed on a hairy spot of man or beast the hair was extracted, while if it were rubbed over a bald spot the hair was made to grow.[[129]] Probably the appearance of certain minerals covered with fine, hair-like spines, suggested the idea that the body of the stone had attracted hair to itself, and thus gave rise to this strange belief in the depilatory power of the stone, or it may have been a form of amber that, owing to its opacity, was not recognized as being the same as the transparent variety.
The Arabic Aristotle relates many wonderful tales of stones found by Alexander the Great during his Asiatic campaigns (327–323 B.C.). While these are all apocryphal, there can be no doubt that it was subsequent to these campaigns that western Europe was first made familiar with many of the precious stones of Persia and India. One of the stones reported by “Aristotle” bore the name el behacte or baddare, rendered in a Hebrew version dar (pearl?). This was the stone that attracted men, as the loadstone attracted iron. A quantity of these stones were found on the seashore by the soldiers of Alexander’s army, but the men were so fascinated by their aspect as to be unable to gather them up. Therefore Alexander ordered that the soldiers should veil their faces, or close their eyes, and, after covering the marvellous stones with a cloth, should take them away without once looking at them. Hereupon Alexander gave commands that a wall should be built around “a certain city.”[[130]] Possibly we have here a distant echo of the pearl gates of the New Jerusalem.
Two other strange stones are described, one of these appearing on the surface of the water only during the night, while the other shows itself during the daytime and sinks beneath the surface as soon as the sun sets. The “daystones,” according to the legend, were quite useful to Alexander in his campaigns, for if they were attached to the necks of horses or beasts of burden, the horses would not neigh, and the other animals would be equally mute as long as they bore the stones, so that the passage of the army would not be revealed to the enemy. The “night-stones,” on the other hand, produced an entirely opposite effect, for when wearing them the animals uttered their respective cries unceasingly. We are not told that Alexander ever used them to provide an animal symphony as martial music for his soldiers.
Referring again to the subject of amber, as the objects placed in Roman sepulchral urns were always chosen because of some supposed religious or talismanic quality, there is considerable significance in the fact that an urn of this type, preserved by Cardinal Farnese, contained a piece of amber carved into the figure of an elephant. Coming down to modern times, there is record that the Macdonalds of Glencoe handed down as heirlooms four amber beads said to cure blindness, and there seems reason to conjecture that this substance was sometimes credited with being an antidote for the poison of snake bites, as a small perforated stone used as late as 1874 in the Island of Lewis for this purpose appears to be a semi-transparent amber.[[131]] Indeed, amber set as a jewel to cure rheumatism is said to be offered for sale in London to-day, and the writer has learned that the late Rev. Henry Ward Beecher long carried amber beads with him to ward off this malady.
II
On Meteorites, or Celestial Stones
It is somewhat difficult to obtain trustworthy accounts regarding the occurrence of meteorites in medieval and ancient times, as there was a strong tendency to confuse the real meteorites with flint arrow-heads and hatchets derived from the stone age. A number of interesting facts bearing on the history of certain real or supposed aerolites were given in a recent lecture delivered by Prof. Hubert A. Newton in New Haven, Conn.[[132]] Some of the more striking instances are here presented.
As an illustration of the way in which meteorites may have come to be reverenced in former times, we have the modern instance of a stone that fell in the region north of Zanzibar, on the East African coast, and was seen and picked up by some shepherd boys. At first all the efforts of the German missionaries to buy this stone were fruitless, because the neighboring Wanikas looked upon it as a god, and, after securing possession of it, proceeded to anoint it with oil, clothe it with apparel and decorate it with pearls. They also built a temple wherein the stone received divine honors. This worship endured for some time, but when, three years later, the nomad tribes of the Masai swooped down on the Wanikas and burned their villages and massacred many of the inhabitants, the Wanikas lost all respect for the stone and were glad to part with it. This conduct was, after all, not entirely unreasonable, since the fetish had failed to prove its divine power.
By Courtesy Soule Photo Co.
THE “MADONNA DI FOLIGNO,” BY RAPHAEL
In the Vatican Collection, Rome. The white curve in the middle of the background shows the passage of the meteor to the earth.
This occurrence in the nineteenth century may well be typical of what must have happened in past times. A case from the fifteenth century, narrated by Professor Newton, is very interesting, since the treatises on precious stones of that period and somewhat later contain many notices of supposed meteorites. We are told that, on November 16, 1492, a stone weighing 300 pounds fell at Ensisheim, in Alsace. Emperor Maximilian, who was then in Basel, caused the stone to be brought to the neighboring castle and summoned a state council to determine the character of the divine message associated with its fall. The council decided that the event signified some important occurrence in the approaching conflict between the French and the Turks, and the stone, with an appropriate inscription, was suspended in the church, the strictest injunctions being given that it should not be removed. Conrad Gesner, in his treatise, “De figuris lapidum,”[[133]] states that a fragment of this stone was given to him by a friend and that it resembled ordinary sandstone.
We are told that nineteen years later a shower of stones fell near Crema, east of Milan; these stones fell in French territory and at that time the Pope was engaged in hostilities with the French. During the following year, the French, who had long threatened the States of the Church from their possessions in Lombardy, were forced to withdraw from Italy. In the celebrated painting by Raphael, known as the Madonna di Foligno, one of the greatest treasures of the Vatican, this Crema fire-ball is depicted.
Naturally the recitals from ancient times are not as easily controlled as the more modern accounts and it is always possible that stones other than meteorites were given a celestial origin by superstitious zeal. The black stone of the Kaabah, which is probably noted by early Greek writers and was an object of adoration for the Arabian tribes before the time of Mohammed, was believed to have dropped from heaven together with Adam, and in many Greek legends images were said to have fallen from heaven. Of course in the case of real statues this is simply a vague superstition, but the stone venerated in Phrygia as an image of Cybele may possibly have been a genuine meteorite.
The following facts in relation to this stone are presented by Professor Newton:
It was a conical mass bearing a rude resemblance to a human head, and was said to have fallen near Pessinus. It was placed in the Temple of Cybele and worshipped as her image. During the second Punic war, in 205 B.C., because of Hannibal’s prolonged invasion of Italy, the downfall of the Roman state was feared, and the Romans were terrified by a shower of stones from the sky. On consulting the Sibylline books, some verses were found to the effect that a foreign enemy could be driven from Italy if the Idæan mother (Cybele) was brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome. An embassy was sent to King Attalus of Pergamos to request his consent to the transfer of the stone, and although he even refused obedience to the commands of the Delphic oracle, which required him to surrender the stone as an act of hospitality, he at last yielded when a violent earthquake shook the country, and the voice of the goddess was heard, enunciating these words: “It is my will. Rome is a worthy place for any god; delay not.”[[134]]
Herodian, who relates this story, proceeds to narrate the arrival of the stone at Rome, where Scipio Africanus was chosen to bear it to the Temple of Victory. A silver image of the goddess was made, the conical stone serving as the head. For five hundred years this image, later transferred to the Temple of the Great Mother of the Gods, was an object of Roman worship. It has been described very fully by Arnobius (fl. 300 A.D.).[[135]] He states that it was a small stone which could be easily and lightly carried in the hand; it was of a black hue and of rough surface, and had many irregular projecting angles. As it was naturally marked with the form of a mouth, it was inserted in the face of an image of the goddess to figure that feature.
As the stone was valueless, modern explorers long hoped that it might not have been carried off from Rome by the spoilers, but the search for it has been in vain. In a rare volume describing excavations made in the Palatine hill in 1730, Professor Lanciani is stated to have found a stone that had been unearthed at that time in a chapel, lacking any inscription to indicate the divinity to whom it was dedicated. This stone was said to be “of a deep brown color, looking very much like a piece of lava, and ending in a sharp point.” The similarity of this description to that of Arnobius indicates that the Cybele stone may really have been found in 1730, but it has since disappeared. It would have been extremely interesting for mineralogists if they could have been enabled to examine this supposed meteorite, perhaps the very earliest regarding which we have such definite information.
To throw it into greater relief it was surrounded by a silver rim. When first brought to land from the ship on which it had been transported to Rome, the sacred stone was confided to the care of a company of Roman matrons who passed it on from one to another as it was solemnly borne to the Temple of Victory.[[136]]
Whether this stone was really a meteorite, as tradition taught, or whether it was a fossil of the type later known as hysteriolithus, as was conjectured by M. Falconnet, in 1770,[[137]] remains doubtful. Its light weight, upon which quality Arnobius lays stress, and its peculiar form seem to favor somewhat the latter supposition. A similar stone to which divine honors were paid was in a temple on Mount Ida.
In prehistoric times meteorites were quite naturally supposed to possess a special sanctity, and were indeed regarded as animated by the very essence of some divinity. The name bætylus, given to these stones by Greeks and Romans, is derived from the Hebrew בֵּית־אֵל(bethel) or “house of God,” a term indicating clearly enough the belief held by the ancient Hebrews in regard to meteorites, or supposed meteorites. However, long before this designation had reached the Greeks, certain meteorites had been accorded a peculiar reverence, and even worship. One of these was a black stone, called the Omphalos of Delphi. This was said to be the stone given by Rhea to Kronos when she substituted a stone for her offspring Zeus, to save him from being devoured by his father, Kronos. Zeus himself (or Kronos) threw it down to the Earth and the spot where it struck was supposed to be the centre of the Earth, hence the name Omphalos, or “navel-stone.” Meteorites probably played an important part in the development of civilization, for it is believed that the earliest iron tools and weapons were made from meteoric iron, apparently the only supply available before the art of treating iron ores had been evolved.[[138]]
While there is admittedly but scant evidence of the existence of a Stone Age in China, and still less to indicate that Chinese civilization passed through such a period, a certain number of stone artefacts, all polished, have been found within the limits of China. However, curiously enough in view of this state of things, we find that here, as almost everywhere else, these objects were popularly regarded as “thunderbolts.” Thus Chien Tsang-Ki, the author of a Materia Medica, composed in the first half of the eighth century of our era, states that objects of this kind “have been found by people who explored a locality over which a thunder-storm had swept and dug three feet in the ground”; and he adds that some of these stone implements have two perforations. They were named pi-li-chen, “stones originating from the crash of thunder,” and a still earlier writer, Chang (232–300 A.D.) applies a similar designation to stone axes and wedges “frequently seen among the people.” Several centuries later Shen Kun (1030–1093 A.D.) testifies that the people of his time found many stone “thunder-wedges,” in all cases after a thunder-storm; these were unperforated. It is generally believed that most of these stone implements had been made by a Tungusian tribe, akin to the Manchus.[[139]]
This is partly due to the fact that it was natural, after a thunder-shower, for a search to be made. Then again, as thunder-showers are usually heavy rains, they were apt to loosen the soil and leave on the surface heavy objects, more especially such materials as jade, of the density of 2.9, or jadeite, of the density of 3.3. These are much heavier than the quartz, feldspar and other ingredients of the soil, which vary from 2.6 to 2.7 and are washed away. Finally, there is the natural disinclination on the part of the Chinese to dig, from their belief that it is wrong to explore the soil, and this disinclination on their part has done much to prevent a better knowledge of the Stone Age, and our knowledge of the races which must have preceded the civilization of China; many facts of mining interest have been neglected, as well, on account of this prejudice. Perhaps within the next twenty years we may learn something about a prehistoric race in China, for as traces of the existence of such races have been found in every other country of the world, there can be little or no doubt that such a race existed in China, although as yet we have no distinct evidences of it.
The Babylonian royal astrologers taught that the mere fact of the passage of a meteor across the heavens, whether its course were from east to west, or from north to south, was a good omen, portending victory and the successful issue of the royal projects. Especially favorable was the augury when the meteor was very brilliant and left behind it a trail that might be likened to the tail of a scorpion. This not only foretold joy for the ruler and his house, but for the entire country; evil would be overcome, righteousness would reign supreme, and prosperity would prevail. A meteor of this type is recorded as having appeared at the time Nebuchadnezzar laid waste Elam about 1150 B.C. This refers to the elder Nebuchadnezzar.[[140]]
A curious series of cuneiform texts treats of the prognostics to be drawn from the transformations of stars into various animals, metals, stones, etc. This is explained as referring to the apparent form or hue of the meteor itself, or of the trail it left behind. The transformations into stones concern the dushu-stone, porphyry (or some other dark red or purple stone) and lapis lazuli. This omen is invariably a favorable one.[[141]]
The Old Testament offers abundant testimony of the ancient belief that certain stones were animated by a divine spirit. In regard to this, Benzinger writes:[[142]] “It was not Yahweh who found Jacob at Bethel but rather Jacob who found Yahweh there. He anoints the stone; that is, he sacrifices to it, for the divinity residing in the stone has caused his dream.” According to Benzinger’s opinion the Ark of the Covenant originally served as receptacle for a stone of this type, and was hence regarded as sheltering a divinity.
One of the very earliest references to meteorites appears in the Book of Joshua (chap, x, verse 11), where we read, in the account of the battle fought by the Israelites against the Amorites and their allies, that “the Lord cast down great stones from heaven” upon the Amorites, so that more of the latter were killed by these stones than by the weapons of the Israelites. Admitting the historical character of the account, this fall of meteorites probably took place in the twelfth century B.C. In an Assyrian cuneiform inscription, there is mention of the seven black stones of the city of Urka in Chaldea. These were bætyli and were regarded as representations of the seven planets.[[143]]
The fall of meteors is noted frequently in Chinese records, the first instance dating from 644 B.C. Of a meteor that fell in 213 B.C., we are told that it descended as “a star which turned to a stone as it fell.”[[144]] A meteorite that fell in China in 211 B.C. is said to have been the indirect cause of many deaths. The event took place during the reign of the tyrannical emperor Chi Hoang-ti, who had incurred the resentment of all the Chinese litterati by his wholesale burning of books. Some believer in the power of sorcery caused an inscription to be cut on this stone predicting the death of the hated emperor within a year, and when news of the fact came to the monarch’s ears he gave orders to have the stone split up, and to put to death all the inhabitants of the place where it was found, this being no doubt looked upon as a most effective conjuration of the spell.[[145]]
In 405 B.C., Lysander won his great victory over the Athenian fleet at Ægospotami in Thrace, and Plutarch writes, in his life of Lysander,[[146]] that a stone which fell from the heavens a short time before the battle was regarded by many as a portent predicting the dreadful slaughter that was to ensue. At the time Plutarch wrote (circa 150 A.D.) this stone could still be seen at Ægospotami, where it was regarded with great veneration by the Chersonites. The Greek philosopher Anaxagoras is said to have predicted the fall of this meteorite, as he had observed certain perturbations in the movements of the heavenly bodies. As Anaxagoras died in 428 B.C., his prediction must have long antedated the fall of the meteorite.
A detail given in one of the early recitals might possibly have constituted the basis of a prediction by some contemporary physicist. In the latter part of his account of the phenomenon Plutarch quotes from a Treatise on Religion, by a certain Daimachus, to the effect that, for seventy-five days before the fall of the meteorite, a vast fiery body was seen in the heavens, in appearance “like a flaming cloud.” This well describes the appearance of a great comet, and might be regarded as significant when we consider the latest modern theory of the origin of meteors, according to which these bodies are detached particles of a cometary aggregation. Of this meteoric mass said to have fallen at Ægospotami, Pliny states that it was as large as a wagon and of a dusky hue, adding that a brilliant comet was visible at the time of its fall. Regarding the assertion that Anaxagoras predicted the occurrence, Pliny declares that this prediction, if true, was a greater miracle than the fall of the meteor. A portion of the stone was preserved as a venerated relic in the town of Potidæa.[[147]]
The site of the city of Seleucia is said to have been determined by the fall of an aerolite, and this stone is figured on some of the coins of the Seleucidæ, a thunderbolt appearing in its stead on other coins.
In the Temple of Diana, at Ephesus, there was a stone partly fashioned into the conventional form of the Ephesian Diana. This, it was asserted, had fallen down from the heavens. The stone is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (xix. 35), where we read that the city of the Ephesians was “a worshipper of the great goddess Diana, and of the image which fell down from Jupiter.” In this text the word “image” has been supplied by the translators, a more literal rendering being “that which fell down from the sky.” This clearly shows that the stone only faintly indicated the human form.
Tacitus says of the stone sacred to the Astarte (or Aphrodite) of Paphos, that it was a symbol of the goddess, not a human effigy, since it was an obscurely formed cone.[[148]] In his life of Apollonius of Tyana, Philostratus, also, mentions this stone and tells us that when Apollonius visited Paphos, he admired there “the famous symbolic figure of Aphrodite.”[[149]] These “living stones” λιθοι εμψυχοι were often covered with ornaments and vestments, and it has been conjectured that these adornments were, in some cases, changed so as to accord with the garments appropriate to certain special festivals of the respective gods.[[150]]
The colossal emerald of the temple of Melkarth at Tyre is designated in the fragments of Sanchoniathon as an αεροπετῆ ἀστέρα, or star fallen from heaven. It was said to have been raised up by Astarte, and this last myth is represented on the silver coins of Marium in Cyprus. Here the radiance and splendor of the object suggested a stellar or celestial origin, and we see the same tendency at work in the application of the name ceraunia (thunder-stones) to certain brilliant gems by Pliny.[[151]]
Virgil[[152]] seems to confound with thunder the detonation of a bolide, followed by a train of light, and he seems also to confound the bolide itself with a lightning flash, for he says that its fall diffused a sulphurous vapor far and wide. Seneca was more critical, for he regarded the fact of thunder sometimes accompanying the fall of a meteorite as merely a coincidence.
Although, in the absence of exact and trustworthy contemporaneous accounts of the fall of these sacred stones, we cannot be absolutely certain that they were meteorites, the testimony in several cases is sufficient to render this almost certain, while in many other cases there is no reason to doubt the substantial accuracy of the tradition. The choice of some of the bætyli, however, was determined by their form alone, to which was ascribed a religious significance, not exactly compatible with our religious ideas of to-day, but quite easily understood when we remember that the divine creative energy was concretely represented in ancient times by many symbols offensive to our sense of propriety.
In the treatise “On Rivers,” attributed to Plutarch, a stone is said to have been found on Mount Cronius, which bore the name of “cylinder.” When Jupiter thundered, this stone, terrified by the noise, rolled down from the top of the mountain.[[153]] This passage is interesting as suggesting one of the reasons which caused the name “thunderbolt” to be given to certain stones, for stones adapted to ornamental use might easily be exposed by the weathering of the rocks, and then detached by the concussion produced by heavy thunder. Of course, the cylinder-stone here mentioned must have more especially signified one of the prehistoric celts, but it is not unlikely that the name was also given to other, unworked stones, having a similar form.
Before Galba was chosen emperor, and when he was acting as governor of the Basque provinces in Spain, a thunderbolt descended upon the shore of a lake in that region. Search was made for the stones which were supposed to have fallen, and Suetonius tells us that twelve axes were found. This was regarded as a sure augury of Galba’s elevation to the imperial dignity,[[154]] but for the archaeologist the presence of the axes merely signifies that this was the site of a lake dwellers’ village.
In some cases, the stone which was held to be a dwelling-place of the divinity was also regarded as a representation, or epitome, of some sacred mountain. In the earliest stage of this belief, the god was supposed to have his abode in the mountain, and later he was thought to animate the stone which had a fancied likeness in shape to the mountain. A coin of the Roman emperor Elagabalus (204–222 A.D.)[[155]] bears on its reverse a representation of one of the sacred stones of Astarte, namely, that worshipped at Sidon. This is shown resting upon a car, and it seems probable that it was transported from place to place, so that large numbers of people could have the privilege of paying reverence to it.
There seems to be fairly strong reasons for the belief that the Black Stone of the Kaaba at Mecca is an aerolite.[[156]] If the conjecture be correct, this stone occupies a unique place among meteoric masses, for it was an object of worship for many centuries before the advent of Mohammed, and is to-day regarded with the highest reverence by one hundred and twenty millions of Mohammedans. One of the most solemn acts performed by the pilgrims at Mecca is the kissing of the Black Stone, and should any one doubt that true religious enthusiasm is aroused by this act, he should read the following words of Ibn Batoutah:[[157]]
The eyes perceive in it a wonderful beauty, similar to that of a young bride; in kissing it one feels a pleasure that delights the mouth, and whoever kisses it wishes he might never cease to do so; for this is an inherent quality in it and a divine grace in its favor. Let us only cite the words of the Prophet in this connection: “Certainly it is the right hand of God on earth.”
For centuries before Mohammed’s time the Kaaba at Mecca had been a famous sanctuary and a religious centre for the nomadic Arabs. It is stated that there were 360 idols in the temple, a number which suggests a connection with the year of 360 days in use among the Arabs. The most celebrated of these idols bore the name of Hobal, and was the figure of a man cut out of red agate. There was a tradition to the effect that this idol had been brought from Belka in Syria. As one of the hands was broken off, the Koreish, the Arab tribe having charge of the Kaaba, repaired this defect by attaching a golden hand, in which were held seven arrows, plain shafts without heads or feathers, similar to the arrows used for divination by the Arabs. For some occult reason the agate was supposed to exercise a certain control over meteorological phenomena, for in Persia it was believed to ward off tempests, while prayers for rain in time of drought were made to this agate image of the Kaaba.[[158]]
LE TEMPLE DE LA MECQUE
THE KAABA AT MECCA
The letter A indicates the place where the Black Stone is inserted in the wall of the building. From “Histoire générale des cérémonies religieuses de tous les peuples du monde,” by Abbé Banier and Abbé Mascrier, Paris, 1741.
Much has been written regarding the Black Stone, but perhaps the most satisfactory description is that given by Burckhardt, who writes:[[159]]
At the Northeast corner of the Kaabah, near the door, is the famous “Black Stone”; it forms part of the sharp angle of the building at from four to five feet above the ground. It is an irregular oval, about seven inches in diameter, with an undulated surface, composed of about a dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined together with a small quantity of cement, and perfectly smooth; it looks as if the whole had been broken into many pieces by a violent blow, and then united again. It is very difficult to determine accurately the quality of this stone, which has been worn to its present surface by the millions of touches and kisses it has received. It appears to me like lava, containing several small extraneous particles of a whitish and of a yellowish substance. Its color is now a deep reddish-brown, approaching to black.
This description seems to support the conjecture that the stone is a meteorite. The injuries it has sustained are attributed to various accidental or intentional causes. In the early part of the Mohammedan era the Kaaba was damaged by fire, and the intense heat caused the stone to break into three pieces. This injury was repaired, but some years later (926 A.D.) the heretic sect of the Carmates captured and sacked Mecca. Hoping to divert to another place the tide of pilgrims, and the riches they brought with them, the leader of the sect caused the stone to be wrenched from its place and borne away to Hedjez. During the sack of Mecca, or possibly in its violent removal, the stone was broken into two pieces,—perhaps along the line of one of the old fractures. At first an offer of 50,000 dinars ($125,000) was made for the return of the stone, but before many years had passed the Carmates restored it voluntarily, having been disappointed in their hope of attracting the pilgrims. The Black Stone was destined to suffer still greater injury. In 1022 A.D., Hakem, the ruler of Egypt, who suffered from megalomania and was disposed to claim divine honors for himself, dispatched an emissary to Mecca to destroy the stone. Mixing with the crowd of pilgrims, this man approached the revered relic, and crying out “How long shall this stone be adored and kissed?” struck it a tremendous blow with a club. The story runs that only three small pieces were broken from the stone, but as it is also stated that these pieces were pulverized and the powder made into a cement to fill up the cracks, the injury was probably much greater than the pious Mohammedans were willing to admit.[[160]]
Mohammedan tradition teaches that the Black Stone was sent from heaven and was once pure and brilliant; it only grew black because of the sins of men. Legend relates that Abraham stood on this stone during the construction of the Kaaba. This edifice was erected in a miraculous way, for the stones came of themselves, all cut and polished, from the Mountain of Arafat. However, no place was found for the Black Stone, and it was afflicted and said to Abraham: “Why have not I also been used for the House of God?” “Be comforted,” replied the Prophet; “for I will see that you are more honored than any other stone of the edifice. I will command all men, in the name of God, that they shall kiss you when they pass in the procession.”[[161]]
A fragment of the Black Stone of Mecca was brought to Bagdad in 951 A.D. by order of the Khalif Moti Lillah, and was inserted in the threshold of the main entrance to the royal palace there. From a balcony directly above the entrance was suspended a piece of tapestry taken from that in the Kaaba, and it was so hung that its lower border was about on a level with the face of anyone entering the portal. All who passed in were strictly enjoined to touch their eyes with this tapestry and also to kiss the piece of the Black Stone, upon which no one was permitted to tread. These details are given in Khondemir’s life of Abu Jafer Al Mostasem, the last of the Khalifs, who died in 1258 A.D.[[162]]
The Kaaba at Mecca offers to the adoration of faithful Mohammedan pilgrims to the shrine, not only the famous Black Stone, which is set in the eastern corner of the building, but also another sacred stone inserted in the southern corner at a height of five feet from the ground. This is designated as the “Southern Stone.” The Kaaba itself is a small rectangular structure, built of stone from the surrounding hills, and having a length of 12 metres (39.4 feet), a width of 10 metres (32.8 feet) and a height of 15 metres (49.2 feet). One of the few Europeans who have been permitted to enter the sacred enclosure, Dr. Snouck-Hurgronje, does not believe that the Kaaba owes its origin and sanctity to the Black Stone, but that its foundation was rather due to the presence of the well Zemzem, whose waters were already reported to have a therapeutic quality in the early days of Islam, and which may have earned its repute on this account. If, however, we admit that the medical properties (of a purgative nature) are due to contamination or percolation posterior to the primitive time when the well Zemzem first attracted the reverence of the Arabs of this region, then the purity of the water may account for its high place in the esteem of the Arabs. Of the Black Stone, a native of Mecca who saw the stone when it had been taken out of the wall of the building, in the course of the latest restoration of the structure, states that its inner surface is of a grayish hue.[[163]]
The Kaaba also contained the Maquam Ibrahim, a sacred stone preserved from pre-Islamite times, and brought into connection with the history of Abraham by the Mohammedan legends. This stone, enclosed in a receptacle of like material, was at one time buried in the ground underneath the building, but receptacle and enclosed stone are now set within the iron gratings which partition off a part of the space inside the cupola over the pulpit of the Mosque of Mecca.[[164]]
An Oriental poem by Assmai detailing the wonderful exploits of the hero Antar, describes the way in which he became possessed of a matchless sword. One day he came upon two knights in desperate encounter; on seeing him they paused in their strife and to his question as to its cause one of the combatants told him that they were brothers, sons of a great Arab emir, recently deceased. Their father had once found a black stone, in appearance like a common pebble, but possessed of such penetrative power that when a herdsman threw it at a camel it traversed the animal’s body, inflicting a gaping wound. The emir immediately recognized that the stone must be a “thunder-stone,” as meteorites were called; he therefore secured possession of it and commanded his most skilful smiths to forge a sword from it. When this task had been successfully performed the emir clothed the smith in a robe of honor, and then, drawing the new sword from its sheath, cut off his head with a single stroke. This served at once as a test of the weapon’s quality and as an assurance that it would not soon be duplicated. On his death-bed the emir called to him his youngest son and said to him: “My son, take the sword and hide it from your brother, and when you shall see that he has seized my goods and is squandering them in riotous living, and sends you away, without reverence for the Lord of Heaven and Earth, take the sword away with you. If you bring it to the court of the Persian King, Khusrau Nushirwan, he will heap gifts and honors upon you, or if you elect to go instead to the court of the Byzantine Cæsar, monarch of the Servants of the Cross, he will give you as much gold and silver as you may ask for.” This was the tale told by the younger knight, who added that when, after the father’s death, the brother had sought in vain for the famous sword, he had resorted to torture to extract from the favored son the secret of its hiding-place, and had brought the latter to this spot commanding him to find it and give it up, and when he refused so to do, had attacked him. The hero Antar, like a veritable knight-errant, took up the quarrel of the oppressed brother and slew his opponent, securing as a free-will offering of gratitude the magic sword.[[165]]
The forging of swords from meteoric iron was, in the opinion of the Orientalist Hammer-Purgstall, the origin of the characteristic surface given to the famous Damascus blades. A most interesting modern example of a meteoric-iron weapon is a dagger made by Von Widmanstädt for Emperor Francis I of Austria, out of the famous Bohemian siderite long preserved in the Rathaus at Elbogen and known as the “Verwünschte Burggraf.” On the surface of this blade, however, the lines were angular, while on the true Damascus blade the lines are wavy.[[166]] An unsuccessful attempt to forge a sword from a piece of meteoric iron is reported by Avicenna in the case of a siderite that fell at Jurgan in 1009 A.D., from which swords that were ordered to be made by the Sultan of Khorassan could not be executed.[[167]]
In an Arabic work bearing the name of Avicenna and entitled “The Cure,” the writer mentions a meteorite which fell in the Jordan, and of which Sultan Mohammed Ghazni wished to have a sword made for him, thus proving that the Sultan believed that meteorites possessed marvellous properties.[[168]]
A number of Greek and Roman coins bearing representations of these sacred meteorites have come down to us, and more than two hundred specimens may be seen in the section of meteorites in the Natural History Museum (Königlich-kaiserliches naturhistoriches Hofmuseum) in Vienna. These coins are of great value in determining the history of those aerolites which were preserved in the temples of certain divinities.
The Viennese collection of meteorites is the finest in the world, and this is largely due to the zeal and intelligence of the late Dr. Aristides Brezina, while superintendent of the department of mineralogy and meteorites in the Museum. In regard to the impression made upon the mind of man in ancient times by the fall of meteorites, Dr. Brezina writes:[[169]]
The ancients supposed the stars to be the domiciles of the gods; falling stars and falling meteorites signified the descending of a god or the sending of its image to the earth. These envoys were received with divine honor, embalmed and draped, and worshipped in temples built for them.
Title-page of one of the earliest treatises on meteorites.
The coins to which we have alluded were usually struck in honor of the sanctuaries wherein the aerolites were objects of adoration, and the temple is often rudely figured with the stone set up in the centre. In many cases the meteorite was preserved in its original form, which, if conical, was regarded as a phallic symbol; in other cases, the mass was rudely shaped into the conventional form of some divinity.
It is stated in Spangenberg’s Chron. Saxon. that in 998 A.D. two immense stones fell at Magdeburg during a thunder-storm. One of these is said to have fallen in the town itself and the other in the open country, near the river Elbe. The description of a meteoric fall given in an eighteenth century treatise on meteors, presents a vivid picture of the phenomena attending—or believed to have attended—such a fall. We are told that on June 16, 1794, at about seven o’clock in the evening a thunder cloud was seen in Tuscany, near the city of Siena and the town of Radacofani. This cloud came from the north, and shot forth sparks like rockets, smoke rising from it like a furnace; at the same time a series of explosions was heard, not so much resembling the sound of thunder as that produced by the firing of cannon or the discharge of many muskets. The cloud remained suspended in the air for some time, during which many stones fell to the earth, some of which were found. One of them is described as being of irregular form, with a point like a diamond; it weighed about five pounds and gave out a “vitriolic smell.” Another weighed three and a half pounds, was very hard, of the color of iron, and “smelled like brimstone.”[[170]]
The following passage written in the fourteenth, or perhaps in the thirteenth century, shows considerable accuracy of observation:[[171]]
There are some who fancy that the thunder is a stone, for the reason that a stone often falls when it thunders in stormy weather. This is not true, for if the thunder were a stone, it would wound the people and animals it strikes, just as any other falling stone does. However, this is not the case, for we see that the people who have been struck by thunder (sic) show no wounds, but they are black from the stroke, and this is because the hot vapor burns the blood in their hearts. Therefore, they perish without wounds.
The fall of a siderite twenty miles east of Lahore in India, on April 17, 1621, is reported in contemporary records. From this iron, which weighed about 3¼ pounds, the Mogul Emperor Jehangir ordered two sabres to be made, as well as a knife and a dagger, and commanded that the fact should be properly registered. Here, as in other similar cases, the weapons were believed to possess a quasi-magic power because of the celestial origin of the material employed.[[172]]
Michele Mercato[[173]] (d. 1593) gives a vivid description of the fall of a meteor which was observed near Castrovilarii, in Calabria, January 10, 1583. Some men in a meadow observed a black, whirling cloud rushing through the air, and saw it descend to the earth not far from where they were standing. The noise accompanying the descent of the meteorite was so deafening that it was heard far and wide, and the poor men fell to the ground almost unconscious from terror. People from the neighborhood hastened to the spot and, after restoring the terrified witnesses of the phenomena, discovered a mass of iron weighing thirty-three pounds at the spot where the black cloud had touched the earth.
The startling phenomenon of a rain of stones from the sky which took place under rather queer circumstances is reported by the Jesuit priest Alvarus as having occurred in China in 1622. The Taoist priests of that land enjoyed the repute of being able to bring down rain from the sky by their magic or religious rites, and when, during the year mentioned, China was visited by a drought of unexampled severity, the aid of these rain-makers was invoked. Yielding, perhaps not unwillingly, to the popular entreaty, a group of priests ascended a hill and proceeded to pronounce their invocations. To the joy of the onlookers the sky became darkened and a rushing sound was heard, at first mistaken for an oncoming rainstorm, but to the dismay of all an immense shower of stones of all sizes fell upon the earth, destroying what remained of the parched fruits and grain crops, and killing or maiming many persons. So terrifying was the sight that the Jesuits who were watching the result of the affair half-believed that the Last Day had come. When the panic had finally subsided, the people fell upon the unlucky Taoist priests and beat them soundly.[[174]]
In the “Annals of the Ottoman Empire,” by Subhi Mohammed Effendi, there is an account of the fall of a meteor at Hasergrad, on the banks of the Danube, on the fourth of Saban, A. H. 1153 (October 25, 1740). The weather was fine, not a cloud was to be seen in the sky, and not a breath of air was stirring. Suddenly there arose a whirlwind, the air became obscured with clouds of dust, rain fell in torrents, and it became dark as night. While all who were out of doors were hastening to seek shelter from the storm, three terrific peals of thunder were heard, as loud as the sound of many cannon. After the storm had passed several strange masses partly of stone and partly of iron were discovered in a nearby field. The Vizier bore two of these as great rarities to the Sultan in Constantinople.[[175]]
The influence exerted by popular beliefs, even upon the learned, is well illustrated by the opinion given by some of the leading French physicists of the eighteenth century as to the character of meteorites. When a meteoric stone fell at Luce, Dept. Marne, France, September 13, 1768, three French scientists, among them the celebrated Lavoisier, were sent to investigate the matter. In their report to the Academy of Sciences, they state that there must have been some error in the accounts given of the event, for it was an assured fact that no such things as pierres de foudre, or thunder-stones, existed. This was, of course, perfectly true, but Lavoisier and his companions did not stop to think that stones might fall to the earth in some other way. The result of the investigation was summed up as follows:
If the existence of thunder-stones was regarded as doubtful at a time when physicists had scarcely any idea of the nature of thunder, it is even less admissible to-day, when modern physicists have discovered the effects of this natural phenomenon are the same as those of electricity. There is no record that the fulgarite, the fused sand or rock struck by the lightning, has ever been used.
The opinion which seems the most probable to us, and that which is most in accord with the accepted principles of physics as well as with the facts reported by Abbé Bacheley, and our own investigation, is that the stone was originally covered with a slight crust of earth and turf, and was struck by lightning and so made visible.
Chladni reports in a pamphlet published in 1794 that the mass of meteoric iron discovered by Dr. Pallas in Siberia, and known as the Pallas or Krasnojarsk iron meteorite, was regarded by the Tartars as a sacred object which had fallen from heaven.[[176]] As it is somewhat unlikely that this belief could be accounted for by an ancient tradition, we must seek an explanation in the conviction among primitive peoples that any mass of rock or metal of unusual appearance and differing notably from the surrounding formations must have come from the sky. In this way primitive instinct often anticipates the results of modern scientific investigation. This siderite, of irregular form and weighing some 1500 pounds, was seen by Dr. Pallas in 1772, and deposited by him in 1776; he learned that it had been found in 1749 at the summit of a mountain situated between Krasnojarsk and Abakansk, by a Cossack. Most of this famous siderite is preserved in the St. Petersburg Museum.
A singular circumstance in regard to the fall of a meteor, and one that in ancient times would have been explained in a miraculous way, is that during the desperate and bloody battle of Borodino, won by Napoleon over the Russians, September 6, 1812, a meteorite is said to have fallen near the headquarters of the Russian general. This would certainly have been regarded—after the event—as a manifestation of divine wrath, and hence a prognostic of the Russian defeat. However, had the French been defeated, the meteorite would have been looked upon as a sign of divine favor, and it would have been honored and reverenced. In modern times the natural phenomenon is taken for what it is worth, and the only interest excited is a purely scientific one.
Of all the meteorites that have been discovered, the most remarkable are undoubtedly those found at Melville Bay, about 35 miles east of Cape York, West Greenland, in 1894, by Admiral, then Lieutenant, Robert E. Peary, and brought by him to the United States in 1895 and 1897.[[177]] They are now to be seen in the American Museum of Natural History, New York. The first report of the existence of meteoric iron in the vicinity came from Captain Ross, who in 1818 was given two iron knives, or lance-heads, by some Eskimo of Regent’s Bay. An analysis of the metal revealed the presence of nickel and immediately suggested a meteoric origin of the material; nothing more definite could be learned at the time from the Eskimo than that the metal had been taken from an “iron mountain” not far away. In 1840, the King of Denmark, whose interest had been aroused in the matter, authorized the sending out of an expedition to seek for the suspected siderites, but the search proved unsuccessful; a later attempt made by the officers of the North Star, a Franklin relief ship, in 1849–50, also failed. For a time the determination of the telluric origin of the supposed siderites discovered at Ovifak, Disko Island, West Greenland, by Baron N. A. E. Nordenskiold in 1870, cast some doubt upon the true meteoric character of the iron of which the Cape York knives had been made, and rather discouraged further searches. It was not until 1894 that these extraordinary masses of meteoric iron were at last seen and located by a European, one of the hunters of the Tellikontinah tribe of Smith Sound Eskimos serving as Lieutenant Peary’s guide. The siderites were three in number, the two smaller having been named by the Eskimo “The Dog” and “The Woman,” respectively, while the largest was known as “The Tent.” It now bears the name of Ahnighito, that of the daughter of the explorer.
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
“AHNIGHITO,” THE GREAT CAPE YORK METEORITE, WEIGHING MORE THAN 36½ TONS
In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. Obtained by Admiral Peary.
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
“THE WOMAN,” CAPE YORK METEORITE
In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. Weight 3 tons. Obtained by Admiral Peary.
The two smaller ones reposed loosely upon gneissic rocks, but Ahnighito, found on a small island some six miles away, on a terrace 80 feet above tide-water and about 100 feet from the shore, lay almost buried in rocks and sand.
Eskimo legend had woven its web about these enigmatic meteorites and the natives saw in them an Innuit woman, who with her dog and tent had been hurled from the sky in a bygone age by Tornarsuk, the Evil One. Originally the mass called “The Woman” was said to have closely resembled the figure of a woman, seated and engaged in sewing, but by the gradual chipping away of fragments of the iron this form had almost disappeared. Peary was told that not long before, the “head” had fallen off and that a party of Eskimo had tried to carry it away, lashed to a sledge; however, as they were passing over the ice, it suddenly broke up, so that sledge, iron and dogs sank in the water and the Eskimo themselves barely escaped with their lives.
The dimensions of Ahnighito, the largest siderite ever discovered, are given as follows: length, 10 feet 11 inches; height, 6 feet 9 inches; thickness, 5 feet 2 inches. It weighs something over 36½ tons. The weight of “The Woman” is 3 tons, and that of “The Dog” 1100 pounds. The chemical compositions of these three siderites, which are regarded as having originally constituted a single mass, have been determined by J. E. Whitfield. In addition to small quantities of copper, sulphur, phosphorus and carbon, the following proportions of the main constituents were ascertained:[[178]]
| The Dog | The Woman | Ahnighito | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Iron | 90.99 | 91.47 | 91.48 |
| Nickel | 8.27 | 7.78 | 7.79 |
| Cobalt | .53 | .53 | .53 |
Though smaller and less imposing by its mass than the greatest of the Cape York meteorites, that called “Willamette” from having been found two miles northwest of the town of that name in Clackamas County, Oregon, ranks as the fourth, or possibly the third largest iron meteorite in the world, and is the largest discovered within the territory of the United States; remarkable peculiarities of form make it an especially interesting object.[[179]] It was a chance find, made in 1902 by two prospectors in their search for gold or silver. Noting what appeared to be a very slight rock projection they tapped this with their hammers and the sound of the blow revealed the presence of metal; digging down here and there, they ascertained the existence of a considerable mass of iron. Although at first no one supposed that it was a meteorite, before long this fact became known, and the finder, by very primitive methods and by dint of tireless efforts, succeeded in transporting the iron to his own land. His courageous attempt to acquire possession of it was not, however, crowned with success, as the courts decided that the company owning the land whereon it had been found possessed the right to reclaim it from the finder.
By courtesy of the American Museum of Natural History, New York.
“THE DOG,” CAPE YORK METEORITE
In the American Museum of Natural History, New York City. Weight 1100 pounds. Obtained by Admiral Peary.
By courtesy of Rochester (N. Y.) Academy of Sciences.
TWO VIEWS OF THE WILLAMETTE METEORITE NOW IN THE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, NEW YORK CITY
Found in Clackamas County, Oregon, near the town of Willamette. Weight 31,107 pounds.
When weighed on the railroad scales in Portland, Oregon, the net weight of this siderite was shown to be 31,107 pounds. The most striking peculiarity is the abundance of pittings and hollows and their unusual size. That these resulted in part from the effects of the enormous heat generated by the swift flight of this weighty mass through the earth’s atmosphere, is generally admitted; but some of the deepest pits are believed to owe their origin to the decomposition of spheroidal nodules of troilite, and the cylindrical holes to the decomposition of rod-like masses of the same substance. Willamette, which was donated to the American Museum of Natural History, by Mrs. William E. Dodge, is 10 feet long, 6 feet 6 inches high, and has a thickness of 4 feet 3 inches.[[180]] Chemical analyses have been made by Mr. J. M. Davison of the University of Rochester and by J. E. Whitfield of Philadelphia. Their respective determinations are here given:
| Davison | Whitfield | |
|---|---|---|
| Iron | 91.65 | 91.46 |
| Nickel | 7.88 | 8.30 |
| Cobalt | .21 | ? |
| Phosphorus | .09 | ? |
| 99.83 | 99.76 |
The famous Cañon Diablo meteorite possesses a surpassing mineralogical interest.[[181]] In 1891, at the Tenth International Geologic Congress, Washington, D. C., the mineralogist Koenig announced that he had discovered some microscopic diamonds in this meteorite, and later investigations by Prof. Henri Moissan confirmed this discovery and enlarged its scope. A mass of the iron weighing about 400 pounds was used by Professor Moissan; this was cut by means of a steel ribbon saw. As had been the case in Koenig’s investigations, the saw soon encountered excessively hard portions that obstructed its operation, so that twenty days’ labor was requisite to separate the iron into two parts, each with a section area of nearly 100 square inches. On close examination it became evident that the obstacles to the cutting consisted of round or elliptical nodules, of a dark gray to black hue, and enclosed in the bright iron. These nodules were mainly composed of troilite (iron protosulphide). After chemical treatment an insoluble residue remained, consisting of silica, amorphous carbon, graphite and diamond. Many of these very minute diamonds were black, but a few were transparent crystals, octahedrons with rounded edges.[[182]] The presence of this diamond material in the interior of the iron mass of the meteorite indicates their formation from carbon by the combined agencies of high temperature and great pressure, as in the case of the artificial diamonds experimentally produced by Moissan in an iron mass first subjected to intense heat in the electric furnace and then rapidly contracted in volume by sudden chilling. The fervid imagination of early writers would certainly have attributed wonderful talismanic powers to stones like these, probably generated in some lost planet and reaching our earth through the wastes of celestial space, could they have been able to observe and distinguish them with the incomplete optical resources of their time.
The first announcement of the discovery of these diamonds from the Cañon Diablo meteorite was made by Dr. A. E. Foote, and not long after Professor Koenig’s determination of their character, the present writer suggested an experiment that would afford absolute proof that the material was really diamond. This was to charge a new skaif, or diamond-polishing wheel, with the supposed diamond dust obtained from the meteorite; should the material polish a diamond there could be no doubt as to its character. On September 11, 1893, this experiment was tried at the Mining Building of the World’s Columbian Exposition. After the skaif had been charged with the residuum separated from the meteorite by Dr. O. W. Huntington, it was given a speed of 2500 revolutions to the minute, and in less than fifteen minutes a small flat surface had been ground down and polished on a cleavage-piece of rough diamond held against the wheel. The experiment was then repeated several times on other diamonds and always successfully. This showed conclusively that the residuum of the meteorite contained many minute diamond fragments.[[183]]
A most important group of meteorites were found in 1886 in Brenham township, Kiowa County, Kansas, by some of the farmers of this district in the course of their farming operations.[[184]] Entirely unaware of their scientific value, the finders used these objects to weight down haystacks, or for similar uses to which they would put small boulders. In all some twenty of these specimens have been recovered, varying in weight all the way from 466 pounds down to a single ounce. Most of them were taken from an area of about sixty acres, although some were scattered over a wider tract. The largest piece of the group, that on which the farmers had bestowed the fanciful name of the “moon meteorite,” had lain only three inches beneath the surface of the ground and broke a ploughshare when it was first struck; none of the masses appear to have been buried deeper down than from five to six inches. The largest mass measures twenty-four inches across the widest part and fourteen and a half at the thickest part. These Kiowa meteorites are in a sense gem-meteorites, for a number of beautiful and brilliant olivine crystals occur in them; many are in two distinct zones, the inner one being a bright transparent yellow, while the outer one is of a dark brown iron olivine, in reality a mixture of troilite and olivine. The character and composition of the worked iron of meteoric origin found in some of the Turner group of Indian mounds, in the Little Miami Valley, Ohio, indicate that the latter may perhaps be brought into connection with this group of meteorites. For here, as in the Frozen North among the Esquimo, and in a number of other cases, the iron available for primitive man was mainly that of meteorite origin.
In view of the relatively small number of meteorites that have fallen in historical times, and of the small part of the earth’s surface actually occupied by human settlements, we need scarcely be surprised at the statement that there is but one credibly recorded instance of the killing of a human being by a meteorite. This unique disaster is said to have happened at Mhow in India, and fragments of the meteorite which fell then are to be seen in museum collections. The great weight of some meteorites would have rendered them very destructive had they not fallen in the open country; the heaviest single mass actually known to have fallen, came to the ground at Knyahinya, Hungary, in 1866, and weighed 547 pounds; it buried itself 11 feet in the ground. Of course much heavier aerolites and siderites, satisfactorily recognizable as such, have been found, the heaviest being perhaps that at Bacubrit, Mexico, 13 feet in length with a width of 6 feet and a thickness of 5 feet; the weight of this mass is estimated to be some 50 tons. Of meteorites which have fallen in more or less close proximity to human beings, may be noted one at Tourinnes-la-Grosse, which broke the street pavement; another at Angers, which fell into a garden, near to where a lady was standing; and still another at Brunau, which passed through a cottage roof.[[185]]
Many other accidents caused by meteorites or what were believed to be meteorites are recorded, the credibility of some of the statements not being very convincing; others, however, appear to be quite worthy of credence. Thus the Chronicle of Ibn Alathir relates that several persons were killed by a rain of stones that fell to the earth in Africa in August, 1020 A.D.[[186]] In the middle of the seventeenth century the tower of a prison building in Warsaw is said to have been destroyed by a meteorite.[[187]] A hundred years or so before, on May 19, 1552, there was a great fall of stones, not far from Eisleben, one of which killed the favorite steed of Count Schwarzenburg, while another wounded the count’s body-physician, Dr. Mitthobius, in the foot. This was witnessed by Spangenberg, who reports it in his Saxon Chronicle; he carried off some of the stones with him to Eisleben.[[188]] An eight-pound stone (probably a siderite) is stated by a certain Olaf Erikson to have fallen on shipboard and killed two persons, at some time about the middle of the seventeenth century; this is rather indefinite information.[[189]] The most remarkable happening, however, is reported from Milan from the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century, when a very small meteorite, weighing not quite an ounce, fell into the cloister of Santa Maria della Pace (now a cotton factory) and killed a Franciscan monk. Such was the velocity of this little stone that it penetrated deep into the monk’s body, whence it was extracted and preserved for a long time in the Collection of Count Settála. The greater part of this collection went later to the Ambrosian Library at Milan, but Chladni sought in vain there for any trace of the death-dealing meteorite.[[190]]
Among the Welsh peasants there is a belief that when a meteor falls to the earth it becomes reduced to a mass of jelly. This they name pwdre ser. The most plausible explanation offered for this fancy is that the autumn, the season when the largest number of meteors may be observed, is also the time of the year when the jelly-like masses of the plasmodium of Myxomycetes most frequently appear in the fields. A peasant who, after noting the apparent fall of a meteor, should go in search of it, might easily come across one of these lumps of plasma, and might well be induced to think that he had found all that was left of the meteor after its violent fall to the earth. Of course we have here to do with the apparent, not with the real, fall of a meteorite. In this connection it is interesting to note that the medusa, or jelly-fish, has been called a “fallen star” by sailors.[[191]]
This Welsh fancy that meteors or “falling-stars” turned to a jelly when they struck the earth appears to have been quite general in Great Britain, and the jelly-like substance was variously named “star-slough,” “star-shoot,” “star-gelly” or “jelly,” “star-fall’n.” The Welsh pwdre ser literally means “star-rot.” As early as 1641 Sir John Suckling (1609–1642) wrote the following lines which well describe the way in which these gelatinous substances came to be regarded as the remains of a “fallen star”:
As he whose quicker eye doth trace
A false star shot to a mark’d place
Do’s run apace,
And, thinking it to catch,
A jelly up do snatch.
Sir Walter Scott also, whose familiarity with superstitions was very great, has not failed to note this one in his “Talisman,” where the hermit says: “Seek a fallen star and thou shalt only light on some foul jelly, which in shooting through the horizon has assumed an appearance of splendour.” Here the star itself is supposed to have had this gelatinous form.
An early writer,[[192]] noting this curious belief that “a white and gelatinous substance” was all that remained of a fallen star, declares that he had clearly demonstrated to the Royal Society that the mass was composed of the intestines of frogs, and had been vomited by crows, adding that his opinion had been confirmed by the testimony of other scientific men. Huxley, from a description, conjectured that the substance was nostoc, a gelatinous vegetable mass, but this seems to be somewhat doubtful. In 1744 Robert Boyle states that some of this “star-shoot” was given to a physician of his acquaintance, who “digested it in a well-stopt glass for a long time,” and then sold the liquor for a specific in the removal of wens.[[193]]
A jelly-like mass believed by him to be the remains of a “fallen star” was found by Mr. Rufus Graves at Amherst, Mass., on August 14, 1819, and duly reported in the American Journal of Science.[[194]] As this gentleman was at one time lecturer on chemistry at Dartmouth College, his testimony is worth heeding, but there can be no doubt that while he accurately describes what he found, he was altogether mistaken in supposing that the meteor fell precisely on the spot where he discovered the gelatinous substance. As we have noted, it has recently been suggested that these “jellies” are plasmodia of forms of Myxomycetes which do not appear to have any connection with the spot whereon they rest, but seem to have fallen from the air.[[195]]
Falling stars are explained by the natives of Labrador and of Baffin’s Bay as being souls of the departed bound on an excursion to Hades in order to see what is going on there, while the phenomena of thunder and lightning are caused by a party of old women, who quarrel so violently over the possession of a seal that they bring the house down over their heads and shatter the lamps. These “old women” must, of course, be spirits of the upper air, not human beings.[[196]]
In some Australian tribes the sorcerers, or “medicine-men,” taking advantage of the superstitious dread of falling stars common among the aborigines, pretend to have marked the spot where such a star has fallen and to have dug it up and preserved it in their medicine-bag. These supposititious “fallen stars” are sometimes quartz pebbles, and in one instance the curiosity of a European investigator was satisfied by the display of a piece of thick glass, which the sorcerer strictly maintained he had dug out of the ground wherein the star had fallen.[[197]]
Arrow-heads encased in silver were looked upon as the solid contents of the lightning flash, and were not only thought to protect the house in which they were kept from being struck by lightning, but their protective power was believed to extend to seven houses in the immediate neighborhood. An interesting example is a neolithic silex arrow-head figured by Bellucci. This has been elegantly set in silver in modern times, and comes from Pesca Costanzo, in the province of Aquila, Italy.
The Italians are convinced that if the arrow-head, or similar object, come in contact with a piece of iron, the “essence of the lightning” departs from it, revealing itself in a spark; hence they wrap it up, carefully, in skin, cloth, or paper so as to guard it from harm. Sometimes these objects are anointed with oil, a survival of the custom of making propitiatory offerings of oil. This usage in the case of sacred stones is very general, and is met with in places as remote from each other as Sweden, India and the Society Islands.[[198]]
In an Iroquois myth and legend, He-no, the god of thunder, is an object of great veneration because of the powerful aid he renders to those whom he favors. He is believed to direct the rain which shall fertilize the seed in the earth, and also to give aid to the harvesters when the fruits of the earth have ripened. While traversing the celestial vault, in his journeyings hither and thither above the surface of the globe, he bears with him an enormous basket filled with huge boulders of chert rock. These he casts at any evil spirit he may encounter, and when on occasion a spirit succeeds in avoiding such a boulder, it will fall down to the earth surrounded by fire. We have here another version of the almost universal myth of thunder-stones.[[199]]
In treating of the flint arrow-heads of the American Indians, Adair notes that in form and material they closely resembled the “elf-stones” with which European peasants were wont to rub any of their cattle believed to have been “shot” by fairies or elves. A village in which one of these magic objects existed was considered to be particularly favored by fortune, as they not only served to protect the cattle from bewitchment but were equally efficacious in preserving human beings from the spells of witches.[[200]]
In East Prussia, when cows are believed to have been bewitched so that their milk is under a spell, resort is had to the powers of a perforated “thunder-stone.” Such stones were ancient stone hammers with a central perforation for a handle. The stone is held beneath the cow at milking-time, and the milk is allowed to pass through the perforation.[[201]] By this means the spell is broken and the milk becomes harmless.
Such perforated stones are also used to protect a house from being struck by lightning. When a storm approaches nearer and nearer, the owner of one of these magic stones will thrust his finger through the hole, twirl the stone around three times, and then hurl it against the door of the room. When this has been done, the house is believed to be proof against lightning.[[202]]
In Westphalia the stone is laid upon a table alongside of a consecrated candle, the shrewd peasants thus assuring for their houses the protection of the church as well as that of the ancient God of Thunder.[[203]]
Another phase of the superstition in regard to the stone axes known in many different parts of the world as thunder-stones, because they are believed to have fallen during a thunder-storm, is given by Dr. Lund in a letter written from Logoa Santa in Brazil. He states that the inhabitants rather look askance at these stones, believing that wherever they are found the lightning is apt to strike, “in order to seek its brother!”[[204]]
By courtesy of the British Museum, London.
FLINT AMULETS OF THE PREDYNASTIC PERIOD, EGYPT
The stone implements of various forms found in the shell-heaps of Brazil are called by the natives Curiscos or “lightning-stones.” The Guaranis name them “stars fallen from heaven”; the Cajuas, “stones hurled by the thunder”; and the Coarados, “axe-stones.” A high price is paid for these by the gold-seekers in Brazil, who believe that, by attraction, they show the presence of gold beneath the surface, just as the divining-rod is supposed to be affected by the presence of water or by hidden treasures.[[205]]
The peasants of Slavonic descent in Moravia have great faith in the virtues of the “thunder-stone.” During Passion Week the stone has the power to reveal the location of hidden treasures, and it is also believed that warts on man and horse will disappear if they be rubbed with such a stone before sunset. However, not only healing virtues are attributed, for if the stone be hurled at anyone and strikes him, it inflicts a mortal wound.[[206]]
A poetic and appropriate name has been applied to the earliest of the chipped stone artefacts of primitive man by archæologists. They are called “Dawn Stones” (eoliths), and the name characterizes these interesting relics, the first steps in the development of sculptural art, as products of the dawn of human civilization.
A curious survival of the adoration of stones is reported by the Earl of Roden in his “Progress of the Reformation in Ireland.”[[207]] A correspondent informed Lord Roden that in Inniskea, an island off the coast of Mayo, there was, in 1851, a stone idol called in the Irish tongue Neevougi. This was said to have been preserved and worshipped from time immemorial. The stone is described as having been wrapped in so many folds of homespun flannel that it looked like a mass of that material. This is explained by the custom of dedicating a dress of this flannel to the stone whenever its aid was sought, the garment being sewed on by an old woman who officiated as the priestess of the stone. Prayers were offered to this strange idol for the cure of diseases, as it was supposed to be endowed with extraordinary powers. A stranger petition sometimes made was that a storm might arise and wreck a ship upon the coast so that the thrifty islanders might profit by its misfortune; on the other hand, with charming inconsistency, when they wished to go a-fishing or pay a visit to the mainland, the trusty stone was expected to assure them fair weather and a calm sea.
In Tavernier’s time (about 1650) many poor families living in the woods and on the hillsides in India, far from any village where there was a temple, would take a stone, probably one of a peculiar shape, and would roughly paint on it a nose and eyes in red or green color. This being done, the whole family would gather about this stone and reverently adore it as their idol.[[208]]
In certain districts in Norway, up to the end of the eighteenth century, superstitious peasants used to preserve round stones, and set them up in a conspicuous place in their houses. At Yule-tide these stones were sprinkled with fresh ale. Some of them were worshipped as divinities, and every Thursday, or oftener, they were smeared with butter, or some similar substance, before the fire. This ointment was allowed to dry on the stone, which was then returned to its place of honor. These ceremonies were supposed to insure the health and happiness of the household.[[209]]
Types of ceraunia or “Thunder-stones.” From “Museum Wormianum.” Lugduni Batavorum, 1655.
The fact that special ceremonies were performed in connection with these stones on Thursday, as well as the name “Thor-stones” applied to many of them, indicates that in early times they were associated with the worship of the god Thor. The so-called thunderbolts—usually flint axe-heads—are believed to have been hurled at the trolls or elves by the thunder, so that these evil-disposed spirits might be subdued and prevented from fulfilling an old saying, according to which they would desolate the earth. Originally it was Thor himself who was believed to hurl the thunderbolt.
These stones were supposed to be endowed with wonder-working powers. When a woman was in labor, ale was allowed to drip over a stone of this kind, and was then given to the woman to drink. All through the Scandinavian countries the peasants believed that if such a stone were hung up in a house or on cattle, the trolls and other malevolent spirits would be driven away, and all spells and witchcraft would be rendered harmless.[[210]]
In Sir William Brereton’s account of his travels (1634–1635)[[211]] we read that he saw in the School of Anatomy at Leyden a stone called “Fulminis Sagitta, or the dart of the thunderbolt, about the size of your little finger.” This was either a belemnite[[212]] or a stone arrow-head of somewhat similar form. It bore a Latin inscription to the following effect: “Many believe that nursing children can be cured of rupture if this stone be attached to their thighs, or if they do not suffer from this complaint, they will be preserved from it.”
On the ridge-beam of an Irish cottage at Portrush was found a neolithic celt of the kind believed by the peasantry to be “thunderbolts.” This celt had been placed on the roof of the cottage to protect it from being struck by lightning, a notion thoroughly in accord with the theory of sympathetic magic. In Surrey, England, a like belief is held as to the fossil belemnites, and nodules of iron pyrites such as have been found in Cretaceous formations near Cragdon are also thought to have fallen from the sky during a thunder-storm, and to possess peculiar powers in reference to the lightning.[[213]]
In Ireland the prehistoric stone arrow-head is believed to have been shot at man or beast by the fairies. Should an old woman be so lucky as to find one she will become highly honored in her village, and it is used as a cure for diseases produced by the wiles of evil spirits. To effect a cure, the saigead (“arrow”) must be placed in water, which is then given to the sick person to drink.[[214]] Cows which have been wounded by the “fairy-darts” are also made to drink of this water. The Irish peasants wore the stone arrow-heads, set in silver, as amulets for protection against injury from like weapons at the hands of the fairies. Similar superstitions exist in the North of England.[[215]] Nilsson believes that the “elf-shots” (the arrow-points or axe-points) of the Irish peasantry are identical with the “Lap-shots” of the Swedish peasantry. These stones were thought to have belonged to the Laplanders, the “black elves” of the Edda, and were therefore used as a protection against the witcheries of these elves. The idea that the substance or thing that has caused an injury can effect a cure of this injury, appears in the Edda.[[216]]
The shepherds in the French Alps value the “thunder-stones” (peyros de tron) very highly. They are handed down from father to son as precious heirlooms, and when the flocks are driven to the pasturage, one of these wonder-working stones is embedded in a tuft of wool on the back of the bell-wether; this is supposed to serve as a protection for the whole flock.[[217]] In Spain the peasants call these stones piedros del rayo, or “lightning-stones.”[[218]]
The names bestowed on such prehistoric stone implements by the inhabitants of the Malay Archipelago, of Java and Sumatra, all indicate that they are believed to have fallen from the sky. In Malacca they are called batu gontur, “lightning-stones,” and in Sumatra we have the name anakpitas, “child of the lightning.” In the island of Nias, near Sumatra, they are worn as amulets on the head or attached to the sword. The Watubela islanders denominate them “teeth of the thunder,” a name which suggests the appellation glossopetra (“stone-tongue”), and like this is evidently derived from the form of certain of these prehistoric celts.[[219]]
The Burmans have given the highly poetic name of “rainbow-disease” to the disorder known to us as appendicitis, and they use the axe-heads and other pointed or sharpened arrow-heads of the Stone Age for the cure of this malady, stroking the region affected with one of these implements. The natives share in the delusion almost universal among primitive peoples, that these stone implements have fallen from the sky during thunder-storms, and that they partake of the nature of thunderbolts; hence they are supposed to destroy the rainbow-disease, as the approach of heavy storm clouds, charged with lightning, darken the sun and put an end to the beautiful natural phenomenon.
In the island of Mindanao, one of the Philippine group, the heathen Manobos called the thunder the “speech of the lightning,” and regarded the latter as a kind of wild animal, so that whenever the lightning struck the earth or a tree they believed that the animal had buried its teeth in the spot. They therefore looked upon any stone implement found there as one of these teeth.[[220]]
The ancient stone hammers found in Japan are called rai fu seki, “thunderbolts,” or tengu no masakari, “battle-axes of Tengu,” the warder of the heavens. Other stone implements bear the name “fox-axes,” or “fox-planes.” These peculiar designations are employed because the fox is a symbol of the devil, and the stone axes are regarded as weapons of the devil. Of course this in no wise prevents their use as amulets or medicinally; indeed, their powder is thought to be an especially effective remedy for boils and ulcers. Many such stones may be seen in the temples, where they are carefully preserved and shown to the pilgrims who visit the different shrines.[[221]]
Even at the present day, the superstitious belief in the magic properties of the prehistoric stone implements still survives among some of the Scandinavian peasants. They believe that these offer protection against lightning, and they are very unwilling to part with them. In some regions the stone axes or arrow-heads are supposed to afford protection against lightning, and they are occasionally used to relieve the pangs of childbirth. In the latter case they are placed in the bed of the suffering woman. Another curious use to which they are put is as a cure for an eruptive disease of children. Here the flint is struck sharply with a piece of steel, so that the sparks fall upon the child’s head.[[222]] This gives us an added proof of the association of these stone axes, etc., with fire and with the lightning flash.
The Burmese celts or stone hatchets are frequently of jade and differ from those usually met with in Europe and India, in that they are provided with a chisel-edge instead of a double-sloped cutting edge. An interesting account of the superstitions connected with these implements is given by Mr. Theobald,[[223]] from whom we quote the following passage. It will be noted that the Burmese ideas are in almost exact accord with those current in Europe.
The Burmese call these implements mo-jio, thunder-chain or thunderbolt, and believe that they descend with the lightning flash, and, after penetrating the earth, work their way back by degrees to the surface, where they are found scattered about the fields among the lower hills, usually after rain, or on removing the crops. The true mo-jio is supposed to possess many occult virtues, and it is not common to find one which does not show signs of having been chipped or scraped for medicinal purposes.
One of the chief virtues of the mo-jio is to render the person of the wearer invulnerable; and many an unlucky mo-jio has succumbed to the popular test, which is to wrap it in a cloth and fire a bullet at it at short range. If the man misses the cloth, the authenticity and power of the charm is at once established; if the stone is fractured it is held not to be a real mo-jio.
Fire will not consume a house which contains one, though I never heard of this ordeal being attempted. Last but not least is the known fact that the owner of a real mo-jio can cut a rainbow in half with it.
Certain recent happenings have suggested that the name “aviator-stone” would be a peculiarly appropriate designation for meteorites, and indeed this new name would only serve to emphasize the legendary belief, that he who bore with him a meteorite when he was in deadly peril would escape all injury. By a strange coincidence those who are willing to take great risks and chances are generally more or less superstitious regarding small things, and a daring aviator recently remarked that on one occasion, when his machine had suddenly fallen fifty feet, he felt for his tie and said to himself: “This accident has happened because I forgot to put on my opal pin, but I have been saved from injury because I carried a meteorite.” This aviator, having mentioned the incident to Harmon, a few minutes before the latter made his successful attempt to win the Doubleday-Page aviation prize, Harmon immediately took the meteorite which had been shown to him, saying: “Let me have it.” He accomplished his task, and although both the competing machines were injured, the aviators themselves were saved.
A meteorite, of course, cannot be claimed to be a preventive of danger on all occasions, but several who have always carried them have seemed to escape all sorts of harm. Some years ago a meteorite was given to Edward Heron Allen, the famous writer on palmistry and the violin, and this gifted man always wore it about him. One morning he awakened to find that the entire roof above him had fallen in, except just that portion over his bed. He told the story to one of the best known ladies in Boston; one who is known for her public spirit, her love of art and her faultless manner of entertaining. This lady successfully urged Allen to give her the meteorite. A few days later, while out driving, a great truck with two runaway horses attached to it struck her carriage. Instinctively she raised her muff to protect her face; the muff was almost cut in two, but the lady was not hurt. A few days later, while she was walking under some scaffolding, it fell, and the open part where the hoists went up proved to be just where she stood. Although surrounded by ruin, she remained unharmed.
III
Stones of Healing
In his commentary on Theophrastus, Sir John Hill touches upon the question of the medicinal virtues of precious stones. His researches regarding the causes and conditions determining color in stones, led him to the conjecture that the active principle, if it really existed, was to be sought in the coloring matter. As the opinion of a very clever student in his day, his words will bear quotation:[[224]]
The greatest part of these [medicinal virtues] cannot but be seen at first view to be altogether imaginary; and as to the virtues of the Gems in general, it is now the reigning Opinion, that they are nearly all so, their greatest Friends allowing them no other than those of the common alkaline Absorbents. However, whether the metalline Particles, to which they owe their Colours, are, in either Quantity or Quality, in Condition to have any effect in the Body, is a Matter worthy of a strict and regular Tryal; and that would at once decide the Question between us and the Antients, and shew whether we have been too rash, or they too superstitious.
The so-called “doctrine of signatures” treated of the marks set by nature upon certain objects to denote their usefulness in the cure of diseases affecting different parts of the body, or their power to neutralize the effects of the bites of certain animals or reptiles. Of this theory Martius says that the “signatures” are not to be sought in a fanciful resemblance to the form of the objects with the diseased parts of the human body, but rather in the color, odor, taste, composition, etc., of the objects.[[225]]
Medieval medical literature has no more interesting example than the treatise entitled “Thesaurus Pauperum,” or the “Poor-man’s Treasury,” written by Petrus Hispanus, who later reigned for a brief period as pope under the name of John XXI (1276–1277). The birthplace of the author was Lisbon in Portugal, and he studied for some time at the University of Paris, where his learning earned him high praise. Prior to his election as pope, he served for a time as first physician to Pope Gregory X (1271–1276). Most of the remedies prescribed in this little treatise are naturally such as had long been popular among the peasantry, and the ingredients of which could easily be secured; vegetable growths, plants, herbs and flowers, and certain parts of the more common animals, served here, as in Pliny’s day and earlier still, as those most highly favored. Of the comparatively few mineral substances whose use is recommended may be noted the red variety of chelidonius or “swallow-stone,” for the cure of epilepsy; the powder of the “iris” (probably an iridescent variety of quartz) was also a cure for epileptics. Then we find, strange to say, a recommendation of such costly remedial agencies as emerald and sapphire, either of which if touched on the eye would heal diseases of that organ. Cold stones placed on the temples and tightly bound on were said to arrest bleeding from the nose, and coral was a great help in syncope. For stone in the bladder two mineral substances, “humus” and “songie,” are warmly recommended (the former can scarcely be held to signify mere “soil”), as are also “stones found in the gizzards of cocks” (the alectorius) and those from the bladders of hogs. All these were to be reduced to powder, dissolved in liquid, and taken in the form of potions. The use of stones and coral rather as amulets or talismans than as remedies is occasionally mentioned. Thus the loadstone, if worn, is said to remove discord between man and woman; coral, if kept in the house, destroyed all evil influences, and if a woman wore touching her skin a concretion taken from the stomach of a she-goat that had not had young, this woman would never bear a child.[[226]]
The curious old medical treatise in verse called the “Schola Salernitana,” was translated into English by Sir James Harington in 1607. The following lines give advice that is as appropriate to the conditions of our own age as to those of any other:[[227]]
Use three physitians still, first doctor Quiet,
Next doctor Merry-man and doctor Dyet.
Whether with or without intention, the translator has omitted to render the qualification given in the original: “Si tibi deficiant medici” (if other doctors are lacking).
The terrible plague known as the Black Death is said to have claimed 13,000,000 victims in Europe in the years 1347 and 1348. A contemporary, Olivier de la Haye, in a poem describing this fearful visitation, gives a number of recipes used, or to be used as remedies. In one of these there appear as ingredients pearls, jargoons, emeralds and coral, one-sixth of a drachm of each of these materials entering into the composition of the prescription.[[228]] The symptoms of this form of the plague, as described by the old writers, are said to resemble closely those of the disease that was prevalent not long ago in some parts of Asia, especially in northern China and Manchuria.
A famous class of medical remedies used in medieval times bore the generic name theriaca, or theriac, this designation being derived from the Greek therion, signifying a beast, more specifically a poisonous animal and hence also a serpent. These preparations were primarily antidotes for poison, but were also freely administered for any form of “blood-poisoning,” for malarial infection, malignant fevers and the like. Principal ingredients were the “Armenian stone” (a friable, blue carbonate of copper), pearls, charred stag’s-horn, and coral. The Veronese physician, Francesco India, confidently affirms that this remedy not only cured the plague, but also protected those who had partaken of it from contracting the disease; this was said to be more especially true of the theriaca Andromachi, or Venice treacle as it was popularly called, which purported to be the invention of a Roman or Greek physician, Andromachus, who composed some medical poems dedicated to Cæsar.[[229]]
In medieval Bohemia the knowledge of precious stones and their employment for curative purposes is well attested. There exists a Bohemian manuscript list of precious stones dated in 1391, in which no less than 55 different gems are noted. Their medicinal use in Bohemia at this time is vouched for by the Synonima Apothecariorum where precious stones are listed among the materials of the apothecaries’ art.[[230]]
In the testaments of royal and princely personages, medical stones are often bestowed as precious legacies. Thus in the will of the Hessian prince, Henry VIII of Fürstenberg, the following stones are mentioned as especially costly objects: a “crabstone” (Krebstein), a bloodstone, and a gravel-stone, the latter being a piece of jade or nephrite.[[231]] The crabstone, sometimes called crab’s-eye, is a chalky concretion which forms on either side of the stomach of a crab or other crustacean during the moulting period, and this was and is still used as an eye-stone for the removing of foreign bodies that have entered the eye, the eye-stone being introduced under the eyelid. This results in a rapid flow from the tear-ducts which often washes away the foreign bodies, the passage of the stone across the eyeball occasionally aiding in the work by rubbing off the body.
Interior of fifteenth century pharmacy. From Johannis de Cuba’s “Ortus Sanitatis”, Strassburg, 1483.
THE “ORTUS SANITATIS” OF JOHANNIS DE CUBA, PUBLISHED AT STRASSBURG IN 1483.
The woodcut depicts Adam and Eve beneath the “Tree of Knowledge.”
In the sixteenth century sapphires, emeralds, rubies, garnets, jacinths, coral and sardonyxes were used in all tonics prescribed to protect the heart against the effects of poison and of the plague. As it was noted that these remedies were frequently ineffectual, an explanation was sought in the fact that spurious stones were often used, the apothecaries either not having the knowledge to recognize the genuine stones, or being moved by a desire to profit by the substitution of some inferior substance. Hence physicians were warned to be on their guard against such deceptions, and only to employ thoroughly trustworthy apothecaries for the compounding of their prescriptions. A substitution frequently made was that of the so-called yellow chrysoprase (cerogate), a stained chalcedony, for the jacinth, although the true jacinth of the ancients was of the color of the amethyst. The grinding of coral in a brass mortar, instead of in one of marble, was also regarded as a very dangerous proceeding, which would have the worst possible results for the unlucky patient who took the powder, for some particles of the brass might be rubbed away and mix with the coral. This was said to have often produced very serious illness.[[232]]
In a price-list of a firm of German druggists, printed in 1757, all the precious stones still appear. Here the cost of a pound of rock-crystal is six groschen ($.18); the same quantity of emerald was priced at eight groschen ($.25), while the pound of sapphire was quoted at sixteen groschen ($.50), of ruby at one thaler ($.75), and of lapis lazuli at five thalers ($3.75). This indicates quite clearly the quality of the emerald, sapphire and ruby offered for sale. A pound of Oriental bezoar commanded the highest price, sixteen thalers ($12).[[233]]
Regarding the length of time during which various preparations retained their strength, Braunfels[[234]] states that, according to the opinion of the Arabian physicians, the solution of lapis Armenus lasted for ten years, while that of lapis lazuli could be preserved only about three years. A list of the indispensable materials which should be in every good pharmacy included the following precious stones:
Jacinth
Sapphire
Emerald
Topaz
Margaritha (pearl)
Magnes
Coral
Hematite
Ætites
Jasper
The supposed medicinal properties of precious stones are subjected to a searching criticism by the Veronese physician, Francesco India, writing in 1593.[[235]] After establishing the distinction between alimentary and medicinal substances, he proceeds to exclude from the latter category the jacinth, emerald, sapphire, etc., because although they could be reduced to a powder, they could not be dissolved, so that when taken in a potion they could be absorbed in the human system.[[236]] Hence no such effects could properly be ascribed to them as were to be expected from the regular and normal medicinal agencies. This writer ascribes the original use of such stones as remedies for malignant fevers and other dangerous diseases to the Arabs, adding that “had they not made this mistake and thus led many physicians into error, they would have been better worthy of praise.”[[234]] In fact he does not hesitate to pronounce the emphatic opinion that these stones are not remedial agents fit to be administered or used by any rational physician.[[237]] That powdered hematite (red oxide of iron) possesses an astringent quality and may really be looked upon as a medicine, he fully recognizes, more particularly its efficacy for the cure of diseases of the eye, but neither these nor similar qualities can be credited to sapphires, emeralds, or jacinths. At the same time he is not disposed to deny that these stones may have some subtle effect upon the body when worn, or when held in the mouth for a time. Thus he agrees with Avicenna (Ben Sina) that a jacinth worn over the heart may strengthen that organ, for he knows of the power inherent in jasper to check a hemorrhage. In a word his argument is principally directed against the internal use of powders made from these hard and unassimilable stones.[[238]]
Robert Boyle, writing in 1663, attempts to show that the theory of the therapeutic action of precious stones is not incompatible with observed facts. In this connection he says:[[239]]
I am not altogether of their mind, that absolutely reject the internal use of Leaf-Gold, Rubies, Saphyrs, Emeralds, and other Gems, as things that are unconquerable by the heat of the stomach. For as there are rich Patients that may, without much inconvenience, goe to the price of the dearest Medicines; so I think the Stomach acts not on Medicines barely upon the account of its heat, but is endowed with a subtle dissolvent (whence never it hath it) by which it may perform divers things not to be done by so languid a heat. And I have, with Liquors of differing sorts, easily drawn from Vegetable Substances, and perhaps unrectified, sometimes dissolved, and sometimes drawn Tinctures from Gems, and that in the cold.... But that which I chiefly consider on this occasion is, that ’tis one thing to make it probable, that is, possible, Gold, Rubies, Saphyrs, etc., may be wrought upon by humane Stomach; and another thing to shew both that they are wont to be so, and that they are actually endowed with those particular and specifick Virtues that are ascribed to them; nay and (over and above) that these Virtues are such and so eminent, that they considerably surpass those of cheaper Simples. And I think, that in Prescriptions made for the poorer sort of Patients, a Physician may well substitute cheaper Ingredients in the place of these precious ones, whose Virtues are no half so unquestionable as their Dearnesse.
Whether the somewhat mysterious illness and death of the popes Leo IV and Paul II could have been caused by the great quantity of pearls and precious stones they were in the habit of wearing was a question seriously discussed by Johann Wolff, the supposed lethal effect being attributed to the coldness of such objects.[[240]] Indeed, the frigidity of precious stones was adduced by certain writers as one of the chief reasons for their remedial use in fevers.[[241]]
Not only to King Frederick III of Denmark himself, to whom on his death-bed in 1670, a dose of pulverized bezoar was administered, but to his queen and their children such remedies were given, there being record that on September 19, 1663, a prescription containing red coral and pearl-powder was compounded by the Court Pharmacy for the queen, while a few years earlier the inevitable bezoar and also a tonic pearl-milk were administered to some of the royal offspring.[[242]]
FAMOUS PEARL NECKLACE OF THE UNFORTUNATE EMPRESS CARLOTTA, WIDOW OF EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN OF MEXICO.
Some interesting details as to the use of precious stone remedies for the cure of illness appear in the manuscript notes of lectures given at the Leyden Hospital by the seventeenth century physician, Lucas Schacht, in 1674 and 1675.[[243]] This shows that these remedial agents were there and at that time only used as a last resort, when the patient’s condition had become desperate, and the physician is usually obliged to record the fact that death ensued shortly afterwards. Thus we are told of the case of a certain Ludovicus Carels who was suffering from difficulty of breathing and purulent expectoration; his body was so distended that he could scarcely move his limbs, and he also had a severe diarrhœa. This was his condition on November 12, 1674, and the symptoms steadily grew worse under a treatment of herb decoctions, until a few days later, on November 21, it is noted that “he only thinks of death.” Still the doctors waited until November 24 before they decided to administer a compound remedy consisting in part of the elixirs of jacinth and pearl; three days later the patient died. In general the chief symptoms which justified the use of such remedies were those of high fever or great weakness.
Although by the middle of the eighteenth century the belief in the special curative powers of precious-stone material had almost entirely disappeared, giving place to a more scientific conception of the chemical composition of these bodies, still, we find, even in so capable a writer as the German mineralogist, U. F. B. Brückmann, a lingering trace of the old idea, for while he declares that all intelligent physicians have abandoned their use, he adds, “if, however, any stone of this kind has more effect than an ordinary earthy substance, it is the lapis lazuli, but we have a hundred other remedies equally efficacious and much cheaper.” He also testifies to the fact that very little genuine material was to be had from the apothecaries, he himself having often seen a yellow feldspar offered instead of a jacinth, and poor garnets as substitutes for rubies.[[244]]
Toward the end of the eighteenth century, a famous cordial medicine, called “Gascoign’s Powder,” after the physician who compounded it, had an immense vogue in England. This man is said to have got more than £50,000 ($250,000) from the sale of this single remedy. It is stated to have contained Oriental bezoar (the most important ingredient), white amber, red coral, crab’s eyes, powdered hartshorn, pearl and black crab’s claws; certainly a most incongruous mixture and one well calculated to test the resisting powers of the person to whom it was administered.[[245]]
A modern writer finds in the homeopathic theory of medicine an explanation of the apparent therapeutic effects of precious stones.[[246]] For if the smaller the dose the greater the effect, then such super-subtle emanations as are thought to proceed from precious stones must have effects still more powerful than those of the most highly diluted tinctures administered by homeopathists of the old school. Christian Science, however, with its bold denial of the existence of disease, and with its purely spiritual treatment of the “mental error” that is supposed to be at the root of all morbid symptoms, could even more easily account for the apparent cures wrought by merely wearing precious stones. The belief in their remedial virtue would serve to remove the morbid impression, and would restore the mind to its normal and healthy state.
An instance from our own day of the application of a mineral substance externally for the cure of disease, appears in the use of the uranium pitchblende occurring in Joachimsthal, Bohemia. This is enclosed in leather bags and applied to the head for the cure of headache. The most violent pains are said to be relieved in a short time by this treatment, the effect being produced by the radium contained in the pitchblende.[[247]]