thieves
; it being supposed that through hearing these mystic words they would
find themselves compelled to come forth into daylight. The modern
burglar requires an amulet of a more forcible nature in these very
practical days of the common law, and the police courts.
The
greatest part of the Gold of commerce, commonly called Gold-dust, is
obtained by washing the sands of rivers in South America, and Brazil.
Pure
Gold is remarkable for its exceeding ductility, and malleability. A
single grain of Gold may be extended into a leaf which will cover
fifty-four and a quarter square inches, being not more than a millionth
part of an inch in thickness. None of the acids except the
nitromuriatic have any action upon Gold. " Aurum Potabile "—potable
Gold—is an ethereal solution thereof, being an inert compound of
Nitromuriate of Gold, with ether, and some essential oil. According to
the French physicians, the best mode of medicinally exhibiting the
salts of Gold,—for instance, the Chloride of Gold (and Soda),—is by
means of friction on the gums; or rubbing this in externally where the
skin is most thin.
Furthermore,
if Gold, as Chaucer puts it, gives comfort to the heart, it likewise,
according to Bartholomew Anglicus, 1250, gives wisdom and sense to the
brain ; for, " as some men ween, that the milt is cause of laughing, it
is by this spleen we are moved to laugh, by the gall we are wrath, by
the heart we are wise, by the brain we feel, and by the liver we love."
Incidentally
here, Coral may receive a further passing notice because often
considered to exercise powerful tonic effects on the brain. Marbodeus,
in his writings,
De Lapidibus Pretiosis, when telling of Coral as an
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