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.