sunlight,
richly endowed streams, mighty volcanic transmutations, and other
wonder-working operations of Nature, may lie immeasurably condensed
within the imprisonment of a precious Stone ;—a Diamond, for
instance,—constituting its (so to speak) spiritual essence ; this being
capable of practical reproduction for health-giving uses under
long-continued trituration, or as acted upon by individual physical
influences. Though a somewhat abstruse doctrine, the hypothesis is
fully borne out by indisputable analogous facts. Professor Doppler, of
the Halle University, has shown that "the power of remedial agents may
be measured by extension of surface, i.e., of the aggregate surface of
all its ultimate molecular constituents, in a state of absolute
separation from one another. By disuniting these atomic constituents
the actual surface of a body (for our argument, a precious Stone) may
be increased from a square inch to several thousand square feet. And
such a potentialising separation is to be effected by mixing the
substance, already finely pulverised, with an additional quantity of
inert sugar of milk, then renewing the process of grinding in a mortar
until a homogeneous product has become patiently acquired. The
trituration with sugar of milk is resorted-to in order to prevent any
reunion of the atoms by virtue of the attraction of affinity which
their immediate contact with each other might excite." " In making the
successive triturations we shall find that electricity becomes
developed on the surface of the atoms thus endowed with a high degree
of expansiveness. That such electricity is thus generated may be
ascertained very readily by any one who will make these triturations
in the dark. After the first trituration but little is
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