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224
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MAGNES.
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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
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