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Magnes, Loadstone

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224
MAGNES.
The earliest and the latest essays of the Glyptic art amongst the ancients were made upon the Loadstone. It is the favourite material for the Assyrian cylinders, as well as for the Cuphic signets, which close the history of Oriental intagli. So common a material was disdained by the Greek engravers, and after their example by the Romans, until the diffusion of Eastern doctrines in the third century brought the material again into favour as an amulet, and the Gnostics (at least those sects whose tenets had rather a Persian than an Alexandrian root) used it very largely in the manufacture of their talismans. As may be well supposed, nothing valuable in the artistic point of view is ever to be found in this stone : the only tolerable intaglio that has come under my notice being a bust of Abundantia, in the Marl­borough Cabinet. Yet the material is compact, takes a high polish of a steely lustre agreeable to the eye, which in spite of its comparative softness it retains unimpaired by time.
The name Sideritis was also employed to distinguish one species of the Adamas : the electric property of the one being confounded with the attractive of the other. Similarly we find the name Androdamas equally applied to both species. The Adamas, in virtue of its superior value, was believed not merely to greatly surpass the Loadstone in attractive force, but even by its pre­sence entirely to deprive the other of its natural powers. A vestige of this confusion still is preserved in the French name for the Loadstone, " Pierre d'Aimant," formed like their " Dia­mant," ab Adamante. The Haematites, included by Pliny under the head of " Magnes," was the reddish-brown compact iron-ore still so-called, and used in the burnishing of metals, especially for smoothing down the surface of the gold-leaf, in gilding, and •damascening. The best kind was procured by the ancients from Zmiri in Ethiopia ; at present Compostella supplies all the jewel­lers of Europe. The only use the ancients made of this mineral was burnt and powdered in eye-salves : its astringent quality being doubtless of some efficacy in relieving inflammation of that organ. A curious but fanciful test of the true Haematites was its attractive powers being restricted to the common Magnet, not acting upon any other metal.
Orpheus extols (302) the virtue of the Loadstone as conciliating
Magnes, Loadstone Page of 453 Magnes, Loadstone
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