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LAPIS NEPHRITICUS. 207
must
be submitted to a similar jury of professionals, and if not judged
satisfactory, the carver has to lose his head. But inasmuch as twenty years
are required for the completion of such a task, during all which the
engraver receives a handsome salary from his employer, the very remote
contingency of failure and punishment tends little to damp the
ambition of the competitors for the job.*
No
satisfactory evidence has come to my knowledge as to this mineral
having ever found its way to ancient Rome, as it possibly might have
done along with the other productions of the remotest East. No pieces
of Jade ever come to light stamped with the unmistakeable impress of
classic art, although 1 have seen a few intagli in a waxy calcedony f
that might easily have been mistaken for it. Pliny indeed mentions the Adadu-nephros, "
kidney of Adad," the Syrian Belus ; but as he also specifies the " eye
" and the " finger" of that deity, in the same way as he does the "
Idaei Dactyli," Jove's fingers, it is evident that such names
denote only the natural configuration of certain fossils, not their
medicinal relation to the same members of the human body. Similar parts
of other deities were espied by the fanciful Magi in the accidental
shapes or markings of different stones. Most curious of all was the Hermuaidoion, so called, " ex argumenta nominis," from its representing the organ, that deity's
*
In Jade we have the most remarkable monument, taken all in all, that
the Glyptic art of any ago or nation has ever produced. This is the
immense Tortoise found in the bank of the Jumna, and now displayed in
its appropriate place in the mineralogical gallery of the British
Museum. It is carved with exact fidelity to nature, and perfectly
polished, out of an unparalleled block of fine olive-green, agreeably
clouded with lighter shades.
t
Mr. H. M. Westropp informs me that he possesses a bit of Jade picked up
in an excavation on the Palatine ; and that the stone goes in Rome by
the name of verde dt Turquinia. But this very appellation, indicating it to be a native of that locality, throws great doubt upon its identity with the Oriental species.
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