The herald., 1898-02-06

SInailer stone, WnlcE rattleS Wnen
| shaken. For hundreds of years our
credulous British. ancestors attributed
all sorts of virtues to this mineral Gu
rio, and he who found it was esteemed
lucky and important citizen. Sir Rob-
ert Sibbald, learned doctor of medi-
cine, and in the year 1894. the royal ply
sician, ascribed to the eagle stone the
power to influence the chick in ovo, and
even to affect the organic status of the
human embryo itself The sex of the
fetus, male or female, was believed to
be indicated by the shape of the free
nucleus or the smaller enclosed stone
just described, and even the complex
ion and disposition of the future child
were traced in otherfeatures of this Won
der producing substance. Doctor Sib-
bald, by reason of certain other virtues
it was supposed to possess, named the
eagle stone the lapsis pregnans; and
many a credulous prospective mother
paid the doctor doubtless a good round
fee to test it's prophetic and, as she
stoutly believed, its supernatural quail
tiles in that direction.
Credulity dies hard. says Prof. Duns.
Doubts touching the alleged virtue OF
the eagle stone did not begin to arise
till the middle of the eighteenth GEN.
tury. and it was not till the beginning
of the nineteenth that all its imaginary
and miraculous qualities fell into
disuse.
The superstition withered at the sci
entist's touch. The mineralogist turned
his searchlight upon the stones said to
have been taken from the eagles nest
and 10, they appeared but those of a
class common wherever iron stone oc-
ours, and are simply clay iron stone no.
dulles, consisting of a hard crust with a
loose part at the center made free by
shrnkage.
Another wondrous object of the good
old times" was the adder stone. This
from all classes, gentle and simple. Pliny
refers to its occurrence in Gaul, even
before the warlike people of that coun-
try had crossed the Rhine, as an egg
produced by snake and as possessing
marvellous curative powers. The belief
in the mode of its origin, however, diff
fered in different countries, though each
associated it with the adder. The gen.
orally accepted theory of its formation
was that at the season when snakes
cast their skins great numbers of ad-
ders met in some place unfrequented by
man, when the largest viper sloughed
its skin in the form of a perfect cube,
through which each of the others in his
turn quickly wriggled. each leaving its
Shiny effluvium in the cube This mass
in drying assumed a globular shape,
with a hole in the center, and thus was
formed the adder stone, the druidical
bead of the old antiquaries, over which
and in which many a simple heart af-
flicted with trouble of his own or soma
of his kin, put implicit faith. And yet il
was, after all. only simple Roman glass
Dedu. II SttlllS lHCItulDlS llidl DE- lc-
Gently as the close of the last century
believers in the virtues of the adder
stone abounded in England and in other
countries of Europe. 1t was worn as
charm against evil spirits, as an amulet
against or for the cure of whoopins-
cough; as a remedy for Inflammation of
the eyes, and as an effective help in the
cutting of a child's first set of teeth,
The credulous. simple folk who put such
a value upon this wholly inert and use
less piece of glass had never heard OF
the art of making beads. They fancied
it's formation beyond human skill. Thus
as in thousand other instances, ignor-
ance became the mother Of superstition
and even great affairs of the family or
the state might turn upon the pivot of
piece of tomfoolery like the adder
stone.