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.