THE LYNCURIUM. 43 



The weight of opinion of the old writers is to the effect 

 that the lyncurium and the amber were the same thing. 

 And so the lynx stone may be relegated to a place in that 

 cloud of delusions which always has darkened and probably 

 always will obscure the path of science. For the long dis- 

 pute concerning it, the antiquarian may find some pleasure 

 in substituting the question whether Theophrastus erred 

 or whether the stone had its true origin in the ignorance 

 of that ancient bibliophile, Apellikon of Teos, who found 

 the original manuscripts of the philosopher nearly de- 

 stroyed after some two centuries' exposure to the damp 

 and worms of the cellar of the heirs of Neletis, and pro- 

 ceeded to fill up the gaps after his own fashion. 1 



but says nothing about its attraction when heated. De Boot (Gem. et 

 Lap. Hist., Leyden, 1636) declares that "lychnites" is a kind of marble, 

 and ascribes no attractive power to it, and gives the "lyncurius" as 

 clear like amber, drawing straws and light bodies in the same way. See 

 Aldrovandus, Musaeum Metallicum, Bologna, 1636, p. 405; also Agricola, 

 Delia Natura de le Cose Fossili. Lib. IV., Venice, 1549, p. 236. 



J Strabo, xiii., 609. 



NOTE. If a third substance, having the same attractive quality as the 

 amber, was known to the ancients, it was probably jet a species of lig- 

 nite resembling cannel coal, but harder and susceptible of a high polish. 

 It does not seem possible, however, to resolve that doubt, owing to the 

 many kinds of coal and other fossil deposits which not only old writers 

 but even modern commentators constantly confuse. Theophrastus 

 speaks of a material which is plainly anthracite coal, and Pliny (xxxvi. 

 18), of the Gagates, his description of which answers generally to that 

 of jet; but neither author mentions any phenomenon similar to that of 

 the amber as pertaining to it. Later writers apply the word "gagates" 

 to almost any black bituminous material, though they commonly mean 

 "jet " by the term. Leonardus regards the gagate as another species of 

 amber "black amber" in contradistinction to yellow, and he describes 

 it as "black, light, dry and lucid, not transparent, and if put into fire 

 has, as it were, the smell of pitch. Being heated with rubbing it attracts 

 straws and chaff." Marbodeus gives almost the same account and states 

 that it is found in Britain, where it is still obtained in the tertiary clays 

 along the Yorkshire coast. This unfortunate confusion of yellow amber 

 and jet, probably first due to Leonardus, has rendered it impossible to 

 tell, from the references to amber attraction by the writers of the six- 

 teenth and even of the seventeenth century, which substance is meant. 



