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Agates, Jet

Cyanus, Lazulite Page of 453 Agates, Jet Text size:minus plus Restore normal size   Mail page  Print this page
GAGATES.
189
This stone (or rather fossil wood) derived its ancient name from the river Gages in Lycia, where it was first discovered; it was also said to be picked up on the coast of Leucolla over an extent of 12 furlongs, where it had been cast up by the waves. The Romans chiefly valued it for its medicinal qualities, some of them very wonderful, for the fumes of it when burning would discover any one subject to epilepsy by immediately inducing a fit : and the water in which it was steeped proved by its effect an infal­lible ordeal of female chastity. Its fumes also drove away all reptiles, and were good against the strangulation of the womb. Its flames, though quickened by water, were quenched by the application of oil. Anything written with it upon pottery could not be obliterated. Mixed with wine it was good for the tooth­ache ; and with beeswax, a sovereign ointment for tumours. But strangest virtue of all was that for which the Magi employed it in the mode of divination called Axinomantia, for it would not consume if the desire of the consulting party was destined to be accomplished. The same virtues 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 the fossilised branches of the same tree that produced the resin, the origin of the latter. 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,
Cyanus, Lazulite Page of 453 Agates, Jet
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