50 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
by a miner of the Innesberg mines. The clump of ore weighed
about two pounds and when the miner split it open with a blow of his
hammer, he was startled to see on the upper half a strange and
marvellous design. Calling up a companion, he exclaimed: "Look here!
Here is the Blessed Virgin on this stone!" On examining the other half,
the same design appeared there also. This remarkable find is said to
have been recorded in the book of the mine, the stone itself having
been delivered to the German imperial inspectors.88
It is well to bear in mind that the number of these lusus naturae seemed very much larger in the eyes of writers of a few centuries ago than to us
to-day, for the numerous petrifactions, showing a great variety of
animal and vegetable forms, were for a long period included in the
same category with the stones bearing curiously deceptive markings or
veinings. Much ingenuity was expended by early observers in the attempt
to explain the cause of these phenomena. The learned Jesuit,
Athanasius Kircher, for example, after having proved experimentally
that designs treated with certain chemical agents could be made to
impress figures upon stones, took refuge in the strange hypothesis
that pictures made on wood or some soft material by primitive miners
had been left in the mine and with the lapse of time had slipped down
into crevices in the rock, and, becoming tightly wedged in, had
impressed the design on the contact-rock; or else he suggested that the
original material on which the design had been made might in process
of time have, by some unknown means, been converted into marble.87 As a striking example of a picture of this class, Kircher notes and figures an image naturally designed
"Ibid., p. 41; figured. Prom report in Miscellan. Acad. Germ. Cur., Decur. I, Ann. I, Obs. CXIII, p. 232.
" Athanaeii Kircheri, " Mundus subterraneus," Amstelodami, 1665, vol. ii, pp. 42 eqq.
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