carat
gold. They are made in Prague and other cities in Bohemia, the garnet
material, of the pyrope variety, coming largely from the mines at
Meronitz, Bohemia.
Among
the cheap materials that have been used on occasion for making rings,
are horseshoe nails, which may perhaps be supposed to possess some of
the wonderful talismanic power accorded by popular fancy to the
horseshoe. The nails are more or less skilfully twisted into· a ring
form, and are at least as durable as other forms of iron rings.
An
extraordinary material combination for the substance of rings, is that
of dynamite and pewter. At present when the war-fever has seized upon
almost all civilized peoples, we might accord to the dynamite in this
composition a symbolic martial meaning. What risk there might be of the
painful results of war befalling the wearer of a dynamite ring through
its detonating unexpectedly because of some powerful shock, is perhaps
too slight to deter those who are in eager pursuit of novelties.
The pale alloy of gold, known as electrum,68
was favored for ring-making in Oriental Greece, and is termed " white
gold " in ancient inventories. Thus in an inventory of the temple
treasures of Eleusis, made in 332 b.c., there is mention of " two plain gold rings of
68 A
natural or artificial mixture of gold and silver found native at
Vorospotak, Transylvania, and elsewhere, mentioned by Herodotus. The
electros, ηλεκτρος, of Homer and Strabo ; Pliny, xxxiii, 23 ;
although this word was most frequently used to designate amber. Varying
in specific gravity from 15.5 to 12.5. The ratio of gold to silver is
1:1. Specific gravity of gold, 19.33; silver, pure, 10.5; correspond to
35.3 per cent, of silver, gold 64.7 per cent. Pliny states that when
the proportion of silver to gold is 1: 4 (20 per cent.), it is called
electra.
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