TALISMANIC USE OP PRECIOUS STONES 55
60
carats each, although rarely of more than one or two carats. The color
is of a darker and more bottle-like green, and the change by night
renders them darker and more granitized than the Russian stones, which
are extremely rare. As red and green are the Russian national colors,
the alexandrite has become a great favorite with the Russians, and is
looked upon as a stone of good omen in that country. Such, however, is
its beauty as a gem that its fame is by no means confined to Russia,
and it is eagerly sought in other lands as well.
Amber
was one of the first substances used by man for decoration, and it was
also employed at a very early period for amulets and for medicinal
purposes. More or less shapeless pieces of rough amber, marked with
circular depressions, have been found in Prussia, Schleswig-Holstein,
and Denmark, in deposits of the Stone Age. These depressions are
sometimes regularly disposed and at other times irregularly, and seem
intended to imitate similar depressions found in large stones and
rocks, often the work of man's hand, but occasionally the result of
natural causes. In Hoernes' opinion they marked the resting place of
the spirit or spirits believed to animate the stone, and hence it is
probable that the amber fragments were used as talismans or amulets.9
For the ancient Greek poets, the grains of amber were the tears annually shed over the death of their brother
Phaëthon by the Heliades after grief had meta-
*
Hoernes, " Urgeschichte der bildenden Kunst," Vienna, 1898, p. 376.
Figured in S. Muller's " Ordn. af Danm. Olds.," i, PI. XV, Figs. 252 sq.
