certified
of Treasure, hid under the ground, how thou maiest have it, when it was
laid there ; and soe, you may be certified of parents, frindes, or
enemyes, being far, or near, or distant, or what other thing you/will
require."
To
the Rock Crystal was ascribed by an early writer the power of producing
the Sacred Fire used in the Eleusinian Mysteries ; this fire being
supposed to be most grateful to the Gods. For which the Rock Crystal
was to be laid upon chips of wood in the sun ; when first smoke, and
then flame was produced. It would seem probable that this tradition
simply arose from the use of glass, or Crystal Lenses
(burning-glasses). The Priests in those days were well acquainted with
the use of many scientific instruments, whilst carefully concealing the
same from the vulgar.
Dr. Jno. Schroder, in his Chymical Dispensatory, "written
in Latin," 1669, tells concerning the Crystal: " Some do hold Crystal
in the sunbeams, and then burn the skin therewith, as with a cautery,
or burning-glass." " As for its vertues, it is astringent, good against
dysenteries, diarrhoea, cholick, increaseth milk, and breaking stone in
the whole body, and is good in the gout."
Respecting the study of Crystallography as a whole, Nicolaus Steno, a Dane, from Copenhagen, in 1669, wrote a treatise, De Solido intra Solidum Natwaliter C'ontento,wherein
the wondrous Rock Crystal with its special terminal points, led him to
introduce some new notions, and terms, into this science. He saw that
evidently these Crystals grew ; and not from within themselves, but
from without, by the addition of new layers of minute particles carried
to the Crystals by a
