Jade or Nephrite. 35 
discovery of America the natives of Mexico had ornaments and 
amulets of green jade, which material has not been found in its 
natural state on the American Continent, the only exception 
being two small boulders found in the bed of the Frazer River, 
British Columbia, which may have been brought there by human 
agency, as one had been partly cut, as noted later on, the nearest 
known source being eastern Asia. On this has been founded the 
theory that at some time there has been communication between 
Asia and the western coast of North America. The jade of 
Mexico was very rare, and the subject of many superstitious 
beliefs. 
Again, in Western Europe, especially in Brittany, axes of jade 
and jadeite occur which were supposed at one time to have been 
brought from Asia, none of the natural jade being found in 
Brittany; but of late years there have been isolated finds of 
jadeite of a somewhat similar character in the Alps and in 
Silesia, so in any case it was probably brought from a long 
distance. 
Jadeite differs from true jade in having a larger proportion of 
alumina in its composition ; it is harder and more opaque. 
The most notable characteristic of the various forms of jade 
is its extreme toughness; it can only be broken or splintered 
by using very great force, but is not too hard to be worked 
into shape by laboriously rubbing it on a rough stone or with 
wet sand. 
Primitive man seems to have had a keen eye for the hardest 
stone to be obtained, and from the stones in river-beds he picked 
out the rare pebbles of jadeite in preference to all others. In 
the Swiss lake-dwellings the jadeite axes found are of a peculiar 
variety called ‘‘ saussurite,’’ which occurs in pebbles in the valley 
of the Rhone, and was found in situ in the Alps by De Saussure, 
hence the name. 
On the table are two specimens of “ saussurite” axes from 
Switzerland, and a number of jadeite axes from Brittany; the latter 
show every sign of the value placed on them in the careful way 
they are finished. One has the commencement of a drill-hole 
at the top, as if the owner began to bore a hole in it for 
suspension, and found it too tough a job. The material was 
evidently scarce and highly prized, for the jadeite axes are very 
rare, and are found buried with bs el owners as evidently valu- 
able possessions. 
The Brittany celts shown are all of jaded except two, one of 
them being of tibrolite, which looks like jade, but is a simple 
silicate of aluminium; the other and larger one is made of 
chloromelanite, which is also a silicate of aluminium, but with a 
proportion of iron; it is much heavier than any of the others, 
having a higher specific gravity. 
p 2 
