as
well as by many of those of a later date. While this must usually be
understood as a poetic way of indicating a difference in shade, the
darker varieties being regarded as male and the lighter ones as female,
Theophrastus, the earliest Greek writer on precious stones, clearly
shows that this sexual distinction was sometimes seriously made, for
he declares that, wonderful as it might seem, certain gems were capable
of producing offspring. This strange idea was still prevalent in the
sixteenth century, and ingenious explanations were sometimes given of
the cause of this phenomenon, as appears in the following account by
Rueus of germinating diamonds :19
It
has recently been related to me by a lady worthy of credence, that a
noblewoman, descended from the illustrious house of Luxemburg, had in
her possession two diamonds which she had inherited, and which produced
others in such miraculous wise, that whoever examined them at stated
intervals judged that they had engendered progeny like themselves. The
cause of this (if it be permissible to philosophize regarding such a
strange matter) would seem to be that the celestial energy in the parent stones, qualified by some one as "vis adaman-tifica," first
changes the surrounding air into water, or some similar substance, and
then condenses and hardens this into the diamond gem.
The
pearl-fishers of Borneo are said to preserve carefully every ninth
pearl they find,...and..place them in a bottle with two grains of rice
for each pearl, believing, in spite of all evidence to the contrary,
that these particular pearls have the power■ to jengendar and breed
others. Custom and superstition require that each bottle shall have the Anger of a dead man as a stopper.
Talismanic influences are taken into account in the
