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56 PRECIOUS STOKES.
pay
the slightest heed, or respect, to those rich endowments of spiritual
influence, of remedial virtues, and of transcendental soul, so to
speak, which place the secret treasures of precious Stones, such as
have been sublimated to perfection throughout long ages of time, on a
pinnacle of supreme excellence inaccessible to mere Art, and defiant of
audacious science. Every page of this our Book, we make bold to say,
vindicates our assertions, and justifies the lofty claims of Nature's
Jewels as priceless beyond compare, and as possessing occult,
immaterial properties of an order far beyond the reach of chemistry,
though ever so ambitious, and learned.
But
none the less important is it that a wise knowledge should be kept
always in view by those persons who own, or seek to acquire, Precious
Stones of irreproachable character, and of indisputable truth,
regarding the imitative perfection which has been attained as concerns
lustre, colour, hardness, form, and response to analysis in the
chemist's laboratory, by substitutions now achieved which the most
expert lapidary fails to detect. Else, indeed, dire will be the
disappointment, fraught too, it may be, with grave consequences, of the
unsuspecting seeker after health, cure, comfort, or welfare, in
implicit reliance on the aid, and influences of personal jewels,
believed-in beyond all doubt.
Among
the Arabians, serpents, either from the brilliancy of their eyes, or
because they inhabit the cavities of the earth, were formerly supposed
to possess precious stones of inestimable value. Allusions to such
Serpents' Stones are frequently found as made by the early writers. In
the Getia Romanorum (1362) it is stated that the Emperor Theodosius, The Blind,
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