ii4 JEROME CARDAN 



the Shetlanders of that time as leading an ideal life, 

 unvexed by discord, war, or ambition, labouring in the 

 summer for the needs of winter, worshipping Christ, 

 visited only once a year by a priest from Orkney, who 

 came over to baptize the children born within the last 

 twelve months, and was remunerated by a tenth of 

 the catch of fish. He speaks of the men of Orkney as 

 a very lively, robust, and open-hearted crew, furnished 

 with heads strong enough to defy drunkenness, even after 

 swallowing draughts of the most potent wine. The land 

 swarms with birds, and the sheep bring forth two or even 

 three lambs at a time. The horses are a mean breed, 

 and resemble asses both as to their size and their 

 patience. Some one told him of a fish, often seen round 

 about the islands, as big or even bigger than a horse, 

 with a hide of marvellous toughness, and useful for the 

 abundance of oil yielded by its carcase. He attributes 

 the bodily strength of these northerners to the absence 

 of four deleterious influences drunkenness, care, heat, 

 and dry air. Cardan seems to have been astonished at 

 the wealth of precious stones he found in Scotland 

 dark blue stones, diamonds, and carbuncles 1 "maxime 

 juxta academiam Glaguensis oppidi in Gludisdalia 

 regione," and he casts about to explain how it is that 

 England produces nothing of the kind, but only silver 

 and lead. He solves the question by laying down an 

 axiom that the harder the environment, the harder the 

 stone produced. The mountains of Scotland are both 

 higher and presumably harder than those of England, 

 hence the carbuncles. 



1 The fame of Scots as judges of precious stones had spread to 

 Italy before Cardan's time. In the Novellino of Masuccio, which 

 was first printed in 1476, there is a passage in the tenth novel of the 

 first part, in which a rogue passes as " grandissimo cognoscitore " 

 of gems because he had spent much time in Scotland. 



