burned for two years without injury, and was at last destroyed only by accident.
JET.
Jet,—Gagates,—so-called
from Gagas, a river of Lycia, in Asia Minor,—though not a precious
stone, is an article of the jeweller's trade, being wrought into
personal ornaments, buttons, toys, and other such matters. It is a
solid, dry, black, inflammable, fossil substance, hard, capable of
taking a high polish, and glossy in its fracture. This bitumen is found
in beds of dry coal, chiefly in rocks of the Tertiary, and Secondary
periods. Important Jet-veins exist near Whitby, Yorkshire. Shakespeare,
in his Lover's Complaint, says :—
" A thousand favours from a maund [basket] she drew, Of amber, crystal, and of beaded Jet."
(At
Yarmouth the name " maund" is now given to a basket containing five
hundred herrings.) Tennyson again has told incidentally of this
fossil's deep black colour, in The Day-Dream:—
" Year after year unto her feet The maiden's jet-black hair has grown."
Jet,
in former times, was considered, when powdered, and mixed with beeswax,
a sovereign ointment for reducing tumours. Also, mingled with wine it
was given for the relief of toothache. Seeing that Jet is actually
wood-coal, (a form of " carbon,") its remedial uses correspond
naturally with those which we have specified under that heading. It is
much harder, blacker, and tougher than cannel coal.
Cardanus tells that the saints of old wore bracelets, and rosaries, made of this substance, for numbering
