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186 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHAEMS
improbable,
still there is abundant unmistakable evidence that very large pieces
have really occasionally been found. In Rome and in the Santa Casa of
Loreto costly and artistically shaped pieces of ambergris were to be
seen, which clearly indicated that the weight of the original unworked
mass must have greatly exceeded that of the ornamental object. There
can be no doubt of the authenticity of the details regarding a great
piece of ambergris weighing 182 pounds bought in the year 1693 from
King Fidori by the Dutch East India Company for 11,000 rigsdalers or
nearly $12,000 at the current valuation of the coin of that time. In
form it resembled a tortoise-shell, was 5 feet 8 inches thick, and 2
feet 2 inches long. After being long kept in Amsterdam as a curiosity,
and having been viewed there by thousands of persons, it was finally
broken up and sold at auction.61 A lump extracted from a whale in the Windward Islands weighed 130 pounds and was sold for $3500, or nearly $27 a pound.
The
livers of certain animals provided concretions called haraczi by the
Arabs; these were much used as remedies for epilepsy. The Turkish
butchers, when slaughtering animals, always examined the livers
carefully so as to secure these stones. As the Jews were said to suffer
much from melancholia and epileptic disorders they valued the
liver-stones very highly.62
The
use of fossils as talismans and for the cure of diseases was mainly due
to their strange and various forms. As color played the most important
part in the case of precious stones, each color being looked upon as
possessing a certain symbolic significance fitting the stone for some
special use or uses, so in the case of fossils the form was
β Caspar Neumann, " Disquisitio de ambra grysea," Dresden, 173R, pp. 80, 81.
" Gimma, " Cella storia naturale delle gemme," Napoli, 1730, vol. i, p. 479.
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