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Agates, Jet

Agates, Jet Page of 384 Agates, Jet Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
GAGATES.
131
are set forth by Orpheus (468), who indeed appears to have been Pliny's authority on this article. Marbodus notices the electricity it acquires by friction, and the fact that the British kind was of equally good quality with the Lycian. This electricity procured for it in the Middle Ages the title of Black Amber ; in fact, it often occurs in the same beds of Lignite as the real Amber, and is probably due to the fossilised branches of the same tree that produced the resin, the origin of the latter. This origin is declared by the regular woody structure Jet presents when cut in very thin slices and viewed by transmitted light : it then becomes translucent, and changes to a reddish-brown. When the Roman traders brought back the tale of the natives on the Baltic coast employing Amber for fuel, ignorant of its value, it is allowable for us to modify the statement, and interpret their report as relating to the use of coarse Jet, or Kimmeridge Coal a cognate substance, for such a purpose. The earliest Celtic remains would serve to show that Amber was from the first too much valued as an ornament ever to have been thus wasted.
Jet was, however, turned by the lathe into ornaments by the Britons, perhaps even before the Romans subjugated this island, since large rings worked out of solid pieces, for bracelets and anklets, are often- discovered amongst other British remains. The round disks, cut out from the centre of these rings, the refuse of the turner, often found in heaps together in Dorsetshire, long puzzled antiquaries, who agreed to call them " Kimmeridge Coal-money," and to regard them as a primitive currency ! Their true origin has been but lately ascertained.*
The Boman settlers in Germany and Gaul learnt from
* It will be observed that Pliny was unacquainted with the use of Jet as an ornament, merely specifying its value in medicine and in the arts.
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