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years of the same affirmation is Scaliger, and the common opinion of most. Ramuzius, in his Navigations, is of a contrary assertion; that they are made out of earth, not laid under ground, but hardened in the sun and wind, the space of forty years. But Gonzales de Mendoza, a man employed into China from Philip the second, king of Spain, upon enquiry and ocular experience, delivered a way different from all these. For enquiring into the artifice thereof, he found they were made of a chalky earth; which, beaten and steeped in water, affordeth a cream or fatness on the top, and a gross subsidence at the bottom; out of the cream or superfluitance, the finest dishes, saith he, are made; out of the residence thereof, the coarser; which being formed, they gild or paint, and, not after an hundred years, but presently, commit unto the furnace. This, saith he, is known by experience, and more probable than what Odoardus Barbosa hath delivered, that they are made of shells, and buried under earth an hundred years. And answerable in all points hereto, is the relation of Linschotten, a diligent enquirer, in his Oriental Navigations. Later confirmation may be had from Alvarez the Jesuit, who lived long in those parts, in his relations of China that porcelain vessels were made but in one town of the province of Chiamsi; that the earth was brought out of other provinces, but, for the advantage of water, which makes them more polite and perspicuous, they were only made in this; that they were wrought and fashioned like those of other countries, whereof some were tinted blue, some red, others yellow, of which colour only they presented unto the king.4

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The latest account hereof may be found in the voyage of the Dutch ambassador, sent from Batavia unto the emperor of China, printed in French, 1665; which plainly informeth, that the earth, whereof porcelain dishes are made, is brought from the mountains of Hoang, and being formed into square loaves, is brought by water, and marked with the emperor's seal; that the earth itself is very lean, fine, and shining like sand; and that it is prepared and fashioned after the same manner which the Italians observe in the fine earthern vessels of Faventia or Fuenca; that they are so

Later confirmation, &c.] Added in 2nd edition.

reserved concerning that artifice, that it is only revealed from father unto son; that they are painted with indigo, baked in a fire for fifteen days together, and with very dry and not smoking wood: which when the author had seen, he could hardly contain from laughter at the common opinion above rejected by us.6

Now if any enquire, why, being so commonly made, and in so short a time, they are become so scarce, or not at all to be had; the answer is given by these last relators, that under great penalties it is forbidden to carry the first sort out of the country. And of those surely the properties must be verified, which by Scaliger and others are ascribed unto china dishes:-that they admit no poison, that they strike fire, that they will grow hot no higher than the liquor in them ariseth. For such as pass amongst us, and under the name of the finest, will only strike fire, but not discover aconite, mercury, or arsenic; but may be useful in dysenteries and fluxes beyond the other.

8.7 Whether a carbuncle (which is esteemed the best and biggest of rubies) doth flame in the dark, or shine like a coal in the night, though generally agreed on by common believers, is very much questioned by many. By Milius, who accounts it a vulgar error: by the learned Boëtius, who could not find it verified in that famous one of Rodolphus, which was as big as an egg, and esteemed the best in Europe. Wherefore, although we dispute not the possibility (and the like is said to have been observed in some

indigo.] Cobalt ?

6 The latest account, &c.] Added in the 6th edition.

7 § 8.] This, and the next paragraph, were added in the 2nd edition. 8 Whether a carbuncle, &c.] That which Sir Thomas much doubted, has since been subjected to the test of repeated observation, and many very curious experiments, by which the phosphorescence of the diamond, sapphire, ruby, and topaz, as well as of many minerals and metals, and various other bodies, is fully established. Mr. Wedgewood has treated the subject at large in a paper in the 82nd volume of the Philosophical Transactions. This luminous property, which seems to be strictly phosphoric, is made apparent by subjecting the body in question to heat, in various ways. Several fluids (oils, spermaceti, butter, &c.) are luminous at or below the boiling point: minerals and other bodies become so by being sprinkled on a thick plate of iron, heated just below visible redness. The gems, and several of the harder minerals, emit their light upon attrition.

diamonds), yet, whether herein there be not too high an apprehension, and above its natural radiancy, is not without just doubt; however it be granted a very splendid gem, and whose sparks may somewhat resemble the glances of fire, and metaphorically deserve that name. And, therefore, when it is conceived by some, that this stone in the breastplate of Aaron respected the tribe of Dan, who burnt the city of Laish, and Sampson of the same tribe, who fired the corn of the Philistines, in some sense it may be admitted, and is no intolerable conception.

As for that Indian stone that shined so brightly in the night, and pretended to have been shown to many in the court of France, as Andreus Chioccus hath declared out of Thuanus, it proved but an imposture, as that eminent philosopher, Licetus,* hath discovered; and, therefore, in the revised editions of Thuanus it is not to be found. As for the phosphorus or Bononian stone,t which exposed unto the sun, and then closely shut up, will afterwards afford a light in the dark; it is of unlike consideration, for that requireth calcination or reduction into a dry powder by fire, whereby it imbibeth the light in the vaporous humidity of the air about it, and therefore maintaineth its light not long, but goes out when the vaporous vehicle is consumed.

9.9 Whether the atites or eagle-stone1 hath that eminent property to promote delivery or restrain abortion, respectively applied to lower or upward parts of the body, we shall not discourage common practice by our question; but whether they answer the account thereof, as to be taken out of eagles' nests, co-operating in women into such effects, as they are conceived toward the young eagles; or whether the single signature of one stone included in the matrix and

*De Quæsit. per Epistolas.

De Lapide Bononiense.

989.] This and the following paragraphs were first added in 3rd edition.

the aetites, or eagle-stone.] A kind of hollow geodes of oxide of iron, often mixed with a larger or smaller quantity of silex and alumina, containing in their cavity some concretions, which rattle on shaking the stone. It is of a dull pale colour, composed of concentric layers of various magnitudes, of an oval or polygonal form, and often polished. Eagles were said to carry them to their nests, whence the name; and superstition formerly ascribed wonderful virtues to them.

belly of another, were not sufficient at first, to derive this virtue of the pregnant stone upon others in impregnation, may yet be farther considered. Many sorts there are of this rattling stone, beside the geodes, containing a softer substance in it. Divers are found in England, and one we met with on the sea shore, but because many of eminent use are pretended to be brought from Iceland, wherein are divers eyries of eagles; we cannot omit to deliver what we received from a learned person in that country.* Etites an in nidis aquilarum aliquando fuerit repertus, nescio. Nostra certe memoria, etiam inquirentibus non contigit invenisse, quare in fabulis habendum.

10. Terrible apprehensions, and answerable unto their names, are raised of fairy stones and elves' spurs,2 found commonly with us in stone, chalk, and marl-pits, which, notwithstanding, are no more than echinometrites and belemnites, the sea hedge-hog, and the dart-stone, arising from some siliceous roots, and softer than that of flint, the master-stone lying more regularly in courses, and arising from the primary and strongest spirit of the mine. Of the echinites, such as are found in chalk-pits are white, glassy, and built upon a chalky inside; some, of an hard and flinty substance, are found in stone-pits and elsewhere. Common opinion commendeth them for the stone, but are most practically used against films in horses' eyes.

11. Lastly, he must have more heads than Rome had hills, that makes out half of those virtues ascribed unto stones, and their not only medical, but magical properties, which are to be found in authors of great name. In Psellus, Serapion, Evax, Albertus, Aleazar, Marbodeus; in Maiolus, Rueus, Mylius, and many more.3

That lapis lazuli hath in it a purgative faculty we know; that bezoar is antidotal, lapis judaicus diuretical, coral ante

* Theodore Jonas, Hitterdalæ pastor.

Terrible apprehensions, &c.] Though he denounces the popular superstitions attached to these fairy-stones, &c. our author, in this paragraph, gives additional evidence that he had fallen into another error of his day, in confounding fossils with minerals.-See Mr. Brayley's note, p. 105.

3

e.] And above all Cardan in De variet. ubique supersti

many more. tiosissime.-Wr.

pileptical, we will not deny. That cornelians, jaspis, heliotropes, and blood-stones may be of virtue to those intentions they are employed, experience and visible effects will make us grant. But that an amethyst prevents inebriation; that an emerald will break if worn in copulation; that a diamond laid under the pillow, will betray the incontinency of a wife; that 'a sapphire is preservative against enchantments; that the fume of an agate will avert a tempest, or the wearing of a chrysophrase make one out of love with gold, as some have delivered, we are yet, I confess, to believe, and in that infidelity are likely to end our days. And therefore, they which, in the explication of the two beryls upon the ephods, or the twelve stones in the rational or breastplate of Aaron, or those twelve which garnished the wall of the Holy City in the Apocalypse, have drawn their significations from such as these, or declared their symbolical verities from such traditional falsities, have surely corrupted the sincerity of their analogies, or misunderstood the mystery of their intentions.

Most men conceive that the twelve stones in Aaron's breastplate made a jewel surpassing any, and not to be paralleled; which, notwithstanding, will hardly be made out from the description of the text; for the names of the tribes were engraven thereon; which must notably abate their lustre. Besides, it is not clear made out that the best of gems, a diamond, was amongst them ;5 nor is it to be found in the list thereof, set down by the Jerusalem targum, wherein we find the darker stones of sardius, sardonynx, and jasper; and if we receive them under those names wherein they are usually described, it is not hard to contrive a more illustrious and splendent jewel. But being not ordained for mere lustre by diaphanous and pure tralucencies, their mys

4 rational or breastplate.] "Rationale quoque judicii facies," &c.

Exod. xxviii. 15.

5

not clear made out, &c.] The doubt here intimated, whether the true diamond was among the stones of the breastplate, has been expressed by commentators, on the ground that it is too hard to be engraved. Calmet, in his figure of the Pectoral, omits it. Rosenmüller however asserts, on the testimony of Büsching, the existence of engraved diamonds of great antiquity. A diamond of sufficient size to admit the engraving, must have equaled the largest modern specimens. Like many other such questions, it admits of discussion, but not of solution.

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