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Batrachites, Toadstone

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BATRACHITES.                                  45
This account makes it probable that the gem in question was a lump of amber enclosing some large insect.
Another version was that in order to preserve its virtues this jewel must be voluntarily surrendered by the living reptile. De Boot relates how that in his boyhood he had
set up a whole night watching a toad placed upon a red cloth (the received mode of making it disgorge the treasure), in the hopes of seeing it cast up the Bufonites ; but the experiment having failed, he concludes the story to have no foundation in fact. The figures he gives of the sub-
:e leave no doubt that he had in view the small fossil hemispheres, like nutshells, found in the Green-sand formation in considerable abundance. It is probable enough that the toad, like certain larger reptiles (the alligator),* may be in the habit of swallowing small stones to assist digestion, and such, if found by accident within an animal enjoying so great a reputation in the Middle Ages for his powers both for good and evil in medicine and witchcraft, would naturally be taken for a most potent gem. Many Toad-stones are still preserved in collections of mediaeval jewels, set in silver rings, the metal appropriate seemingly to that purpose, being generally prescribed for the setting of all amulets. I have lately had an opportu­nity of examining several of these Toad-stones, some in their original settings, some extracted. They are hemi-spherieal, elliptical, or oval, hollow within, of an appa­rently petrified bony substance, whity brown, or variegated with darker shades.f The true, but very recent explana-
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