Phosphorescence of Precious Stones 67 



rescent in the dark after long exposure to the sun. The ancients also 

 ascribed magnetic powers to the diamond in even a greater degree than 

 to the loadstone, so much so that they believed the latter was totally 

 deprived of this quality in the presence of the diamond; but this notion 

 is quite ungrounded. Their sole idea of magnetism was the property of 

 attraction; therefore seeing that the diamond possessed this for light 

 objects, the step to ascribing to it a superiority in this as in all other 

 respects over the loadstone was an easy one for their lively imagina- 

 tions." Ajasson, however, holds that if the diamond is placed in the 

 magnetic line or current of the loadstone, it attracts iron equally with 

 the loadstone, and consequently neutralizes the attractive power of 

 the loadstone in a considerable degree. 1 Be this as it may, Pliny, at 

 any rate, was well informed on the electrical quality of the diamond; 

 and if this experiment in the case of diamond and tourmaline was 

 brought about by rubbing the stones, it is not impossible that in this 

 manner also a phosphorescence was occasionally produced and ob- 

 served. A few such observations may easily have given rise to fabulous 

 exaggerations of stones illumining the night. 



Were phosphorescent phenomena known to the Chinese? First 

 of all, they were known in that subconscious and elementary form in 

 which we find such conceptions in the domain of our own folk-lore. 

 The philosopher Huai-nan-tse of the second century B.C. says that old 

 huai trees (Sophora japonica) produce fire, and that blood preserved for 

 a long time produces a phenomenon called lin ify . 2 This word is 

 justly assigned the meaning "flitting light" and "will-o'-the-wisp, as 

 seen over battle-fields." It is defined in the ancient dictionary Shuo 

 win as proceeding from the dead bodies of soldiers and the blood of 

 cattle and horses, popularly styled "fires of the departed souls." 1 

 The philosopher Wang Ch'ung of the first century a.d. criticised this 

 belief of his contemporaries as follows: "When a man has died on a 

 battle-field, they say that his blood becomes a will-o'-the-wisp. The 

 blood is the vital force of the living. The will-o'-the-wisp seen by 

 people while walking at night has no human form; it is desultory and 



fact by their luxuriant imaginations." I am somewhat inclined toward the same 

 opinion; but we should not lose sight of the fact that the phenomenon itself, as far as 

 precious stones are concerned, is not described in any ancient record, while we may 

 trust to the future that such will turn up some day in a Greek papyrus. As the 

 matter stands at present, we have at the best a theory founded on circumstantial 

 evidence deduced from the ancients' knowledge of the magnetic property of precious 

 stones. 



1 Bostock and Riley, Natural History of Pliny, Vol. VI, p. 408. 



1 Quoted under this word in K'ang-hi's Dictionary. 



1 The text is cited in Couvreur's Dictionnaire chinois-francais, p. 496. 



