MAGIC STONES AND ELECTRIC GEMS 29
met with all the way from the Kennebec Valley eastward to Bar Harbor.47
The
respective symbolic meanings of white and black are illustrated in the
designations "white magic" and "black magic," the latter denoting
conjurations or spells in which the aid of the powers of darkness, of
the Devil and his demons, was sought by the sorcerer, while ' ' white
magic' ' was to be performed by harmless and innocent means, sometimes
even by religious rites. In this way it sometimes so closely approached
the domain of religious miracle, that it becomes difficult to
distinguish between these two conceptions of supernatural action in the
material world.
Quartz
of a different type with needle-like inclusions is called ' ' Thetis's
hair stone. ' ' This is a transparent or translucent quartz, but so
completely filled with acicular crystals of green actinolite, or
occasionally altered actinolite of a yellow-brown or brown color, as to
appear almost opaque; seals and charms have been made to a small extent
of this variety. Of other inclusions in quartz we may note those of a
very brilliant stibnite projecting in all directions, some of the
intruded crystals being very curiously bent. Exceedingly beautiful
gems have been cut from this material.48 When this quartz is
cut en cabochon across the ravalette inclusions, a cat's-eye effect is
produced. The yellow quartz cat's-eye of Ceylon and the green of Haff,
Bavaria, are of this type. So densely set were the green actinolite
inclusions in the case of a specimen found at Gibsonville, North
Carolina, that it was believed by the finder to be an emerald.
An extremely beautiful effect in quartz is produced by enclosed, acicular crystals, or hair-like particles of some
»Warren K. Moorehead, "The Red-Paint People of Maine," pp. 42, 43. Reprint from the Amerioa» Anthropologist (N. S.), vol xr, No. 1, January-March, 1913.
• See the present writer's " Gems and Precious Stones of North America," New York, 1892, p. 126.
