42 THE INTELLECTUAL RISE IN ELECTRICITY. 



attractive effect, when heated, became known, and there- 

 upon the contest ended as illogically as it had continued, 

 in the generally accepted notion that it was the tourmaline 

 to which Theophrastus referred. 



Nevertheless there is nothing in the statement of Theo- 

 phrastus to warrant any such inference. He says that the 

 stone has the same attractive properties as the amber, but 

 not that these are excited by heating instead of by attri- 

 tion. The amber, he states, conies from Liguria, one 

 boundary of which was the Eridanus or Po river, on the 

 banks of which, as we have seen, the Greeks, from the 

 time of Herodotus, erroneously supposed the resin to be 

 found. Long before the time of Theophrastus, the Ligure 

 or Ligurian stone was well known. In both the original 

 Mosaic version of the Scriptures and in the Septuagint, the 

 u ligure" is the seventh stone in the breastplate of the 

 high priest, 1 and it is likewise the seventh stone in the 

 covering of the King of Tyre 2 in the Septuagint, though 

 not in the original. It may be, therefore, that confusion 

 was caused by the similarly sounding names of the Ligure 

 or Ligurian stone, which was the amber, with the Lyngur- 

 ian stone derived from the lynx a substance which Pliny 

 denounces as wholly mythical and non-existing. 3 



1 Exodus xxxiii. 17-20. 2 Ezek. xxviii. 13. 



3 Pliny : lib. xxxvii. c. 13. Marbodeus, Archbishop of Remies, has 

 on the title page of his poem on Gems, attributed to the ancient Arabian 

 author Evax, a picture of the Jewish high priest wearing the breastplate, 

 one stone of which is marked " lincurius," and in his commentary he 

 gives the word as "lyngurius" (Marbodeus Gallus, Cologne, 1539, p. 

 39). Erasmus in his commentary on St. Jerome, says that "lyngurius" 

 and "ligurius" are the same thing, and so does Dioscorides (Lib. 37. 3). 

 Camillus Leonardus (The Mirror of Stones, Venice, 1502, Eng. Trans., 

 London, 1750) notes the "lychinus" or "lychnites" as an "Indian gem 

 red in color," and mentions two species, one of which, purple in color, 

 being heated by the sun or by friction, attracts straws. This suggests 

 of course the tourmaline. But to the "lyncurius" or "lyncis" he at- 

 tributes no attractive quality, and he further notes the " ligurius," which 

 he says is ; 'like the electorius and draws straws." lolinus (lib. iii., 

 Utrecht, 1689, p. 59) agrees with Leonardus in defining the "lychuites," 



