204 ANNUAL ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR DUNS, D.D., F.R.S.E., 



them a definite place in the sum of human knowledge — 

 historical, philosophical, scientific. What Portland cement 

 does for broken stones and gravel by moulding them into 

 solid blocks for useful purposes, folklore savants are en- 

 deavouring to do for floating traditions in every department 

 of thought, and also for their numberless variants. And 

 they think something certain and sure has been already done, 

 but they do not seem to know how little that is ! The whole 

 subject is full of interest because it has so nuich of man's 

 past in it. Moreover, even the mere ascription of imaginary 

 qualities to natural objects may lead to the discovery of 

 much in them which is true and useful. The British Pharma- 

 copoeia is a witness to this as to rare and abnormal forms both 

 of stones, of plants, and of animals. 



As to stone folk-lore, I distinguish between man's mark in 

 the stone, and the mfluence of the unusual shape, or the 

 imaginary quality of the stone on man. The former falls to 

 the student of archeeology, as philological or as artistic, or as 

 both. The folklore field proper includes all varieties of the 

 latter. My apology for the foregoing rambling remarks is 

 that they fit the subject of this paper, which is not the 

 philosophy of Folklore but some illustrative instances of it in 

 the department of mineralogy. The illustrations might be 

 brought together under two heads, (1) the Natural History 

 Group, and (2) the Superstitions Group, but, as several 

 might have a place in both of these, it will save repetition to 

 keep the ins^tances separate. 



1. The Eagle-Stone {^tites of some) is believed to be 

 found only in the nest of the golden eagle, and to have been 

 put there by the noble ))ird itself, to facilitate the hatching 

 of the young, and to moderate the violent heat in the breast 

 of the incubating female. The stone is described as tapering 

 at both ends, hollow, and enclosing a smaller stone which 

 rattles when shaken. When the mineralogist turned his 

 light on the stones said to have been taken from the eagle's 

 nest, they were shown to be common wherever ironstone 

 occurs, and are simply clay ironstone nodules, consisting of a 

 hard crust, with a loose part at the centre made free by 

 shrinkage. Two hundred years ago this stone was credited 

 with extraordinary virtues. It was the lapis pregnans of Sir 

 Robert Sibbald (1694) — "the King's physician" — w-ho 

 ascribed to it power to influence not only the chick in ovo. 

 but also the possibility of the human embryo. The shape of 

 the free nucleus was held to indicate sex — ma,le or female, or 



