118 Amber and Jet in Ancient Burials. 



These cliffs, it is probable, furnished the Romans with the 

 Jet which was employed in making ornaments, the station of 

 " Dunum Sinus," Densley Bay, being conveniently near.^ 

 Jet has sometimes been called cannel coal, and this substance 

 has often been used as the nearest approach to Jet, when it 

 was not at hand at the time required. Bede, in his 

 Ecclesiastical History, describes the Gagates as being in his 

 time an important production of Britain, and he speaks of its 

 quality when burnt of driving away serpents, and tells us 

 how, when warmed by rubbing, it has the same attractive 

 quality as Amber. 2^ Solinus says : — " In Britain there is a 

 great store of Gagates or Geate, a very fine stone like a 

 jewel ; if the Quality, it is exceedingly light ; if the Nature 

 of it, it burns in water, and is quenched with oil ; if the 

 Virtue, it has an attractive power when it is heated with 

 rubbing." " The rare qualities of it authors thus 

 describe " : — 



" Black shining Jet like a gem is found 



Among the Britains on their rocky ground, 



"Tis smooth and light, and being rubbed to heat. 



Will draw, like Amber, straws of chaff and wheat; 



Sprinkled with water, it will fire take ; 



But oil will quench it, and the heat quite slake. "28 



Sir John Evans says that Jet has been found in both 

 Neolithic and Bronze Age graves in Wiltshire, Yorkshire, 

 Northumberland, Derbyshire, Heathery Burn, Stanhope, Co. 

 Durham, and at Little Cressingham, Norfolk, near the neck 

 of a contracted skeleton, where Amber beads were mixed with 

 those of Jet. Near Holyhead at Pen-y-Bonc a very fine set 

 of Jet beads, probably a necklace, was found with flat plates 

 in between them. At Cruden, Aberdeenshire, Jet and Amber 

 beads were found together, as also at Assynt, Ross. At 

 Balcalk, Tealing, a beautiful Jet necklace was found, the most 

 complete example ever found in Scotland, consisting of 140 



26 Phillip's Geology of the Yorkshire Coast, p. 150. 



27 Bede's History, lib. i., c. 1. 



28 "Yorkshire Natural History 200 Years Ago," from the 

 S^aturalist, November, 1914, p. 344. 



