HORNS AND TUSKS 297 



We are told that in 1593 the physicians of Augsburg 

 tested the virtues of one of the horns as an antidote for 

 poisons in the case of a child, and they also experimented 

 with kittens and pigeons. A memorial relating to these 

 experiments was drawn up and signed by the physicians 

 present, the results not being very conclusive. Valentinus 

 relates this, and adds that he, himself, would hesitate to 

 make any such experiments on a human being, trusting 

 blindly to the powers of the horn.* 



Teeth or horns that were found buried in the earth were 

 sometimes called buried unicorn, or fossil unicorn. They 

 appeared like the bones of men or animals, or like teeth 

 or horns, being brittle, light, and porous, with an earthy 

 flavour, yellowish gray or brown in colour, and of various 

 dimensions. Frequently they were hollow within, or else 

 filled with a soft greasy earth; they were found in the Hartz 

 Mountains, in Silesia, in the Palatinate, and in Wurtemberg. 

 The popular belief was that this material represented the 

 bones of animals or giants, which in the time of the Deluge 

 floated away and became petrified in the earth. f 



The great demand for these precious "horns'* appears to 

 have been satisfied by quite an abundant supply, for a writer 

 of the beginning of the eighteenth century, treating of this 

 type, asks: 



"If it be so rare, whence come so many hundreds of horns 

 which are found here and there, and are in daily use.^^ Not to 

 speak of unicorn's horns such as appear in the Royal Treas- 

 ury at St. Denis, near Paris, in Copenhagen, in the Castle 

 church at Dresden, in the Museum there, and in other places, 

 where they are preserved in costly cases and suspended by 

 golden chains; almost every druggist and apothecary can 



*Valentini, "Museum museorum, oder Vollstandige Schau-Buhne," Franckfurt am 

 Mayn, 1714, Bk. Ill, cap. 30, §4, p. 483. 



tValentini, op. cit., Bk. Ill, cap. 30, §5, p. 483. 



