20 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 
and their Sources; Talismans and Amu- 
lets; Talismanic Use of Special Stones; 
Engraved and Carved Gems; Ominous 
and Luminous Stones [with an excep- 
tionally valuable plate giving the auto- 
photographs of luminous diamonds]; 
Crystal Balls and Crystal Gazing; Reli- 
gious Uses of Precious Stones; The 
High-Priest’s Breastplate; Birth-Stones; 
Planetary and Astral Influences; On 
Therapeutic Uses of Stones. 
The book has an overwhelming wealth 
of detail and assembled references, avail- 
able literature and the most diverse 
elements of evidence having been care- 
fully sifted. We are not sure, but we 
believe that one field has not been har- 
vested, and that is the Church Fathers, 
interesting and possibly prolific of quota- 
tion, since the patristic writers were in- 
quisitive in many ways. Apart from the 
purely archaic strangeness of the fancies 
the book records — regarding the quali- 
ties of gems and precious stones, interest 
emphatically attaches to the accounts 
of erystal-gazing. It might be regretted 
that Dr. Kunz has not 
greater length the work of Miss Good- 
rich-Freer and of Miss Gregor (Andrew 
reviewed at 
Lang’s friend), and extracted more liber- 
ally from Crystal-Gazing by Northcote 
W. Thomas, as also from Andrew Lang’s 
Making of Religion, which has many 
cases, appreciatively recorded, of “sery- 
ing” (short for descrying). 
Tothose of us a little ‘ dematerialized, 
as Oliver Lodge for instance, an agreeah!e 
mysteriousness is felt in Mr. Lang’s 
words, “If then the crystal gazer is right 
in a considerable percentage of cases, 
to my unmathematical mind it does 
look as if some unknown human faculty 
and fact in nature may be surmised.” 
Dr. Kunz does mention “hypnagogic 
illusions,” the illusive appearances in- 
troducing sleep, and he does contribute 
more space than perhaps he deemed the 
subject could claim in his work, to a few 
guesses as to the nature of the queer 
phenomena so frequently adduced in this 
” 
connection. 
The Curious Lore of Precious Stones is a 
most entertaining book, and to the re- 
flective reader will afford a singular reti- 
nue of impressions as to the vast credu- 
lity and the imaginative exuberance of 
the human mind, so that perchance as he 
lays it down, he will exclaim with the 
“Duke” in Twelfth-Night: 
so full of shapes is fancy 
That it alone is high fantastical. 
