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96 THE CURIOUS LORE OP PRECIOUS STONES
A
rich growth of Mohammedan legends grew up about the exploits of
Alexander the Great, a striking example being given on another page,
and in one of them it is related that the Greek world-conqueror
provided his soldiers with loadstones as a defence against the wiles
of the jinns, or evil spirits; the loadstone, as well as magnetized
iron, being regarded as a sure defence against enchantments and all
the machinations of malignant spirits.93
In
the East Indies it is said that a king should have a seat of loadstone
at his coronation ; probably because the magnetic influence of the
stone was supposed to attract power, favor, and gifts to the sovereign.
But it is not only in the Orient that magnetite is prized for its
talis-inanic powers, for even in some parts of our own land this belief
is still prevalent. Large quantities of loadstone are found at Magnet
Cove, Arkansas, and it is estimated that from one to three tons are
sold annually to the negroes to be used in the Voodoo ceremonies as
conjuring stones. The material has been found in land used for farming
purposes, and many pieces have been turned up in ploughing for corn;
these vary from the size of a pea to masses weighing from ten to twenty
pounds. They occur in a reddish-brown, sticky soil; their surface is
smooth and brown and they have the appearance of water-worn pebbles. In
July, 1887, an interesting case was tried in Macon, Georgia, where a
negro woman sued a conjuror to recover five dollars which she had paid
him for a piece of loadstone to serve as a charm to bring back her
wandering husband. As the market value of this mineral was only
seventy-five cents a pound, and the piece
MFrom
El Kazwini's "Adjâïl el makluquat " ; cited in marginal note, vol. i,
pp. 310, 311, of El Damu's " Hayat el hayauân," Cairo, 1313 (1895).
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