On a Perforated Ball of Rock Crystal. 291 
FRAZER 
there is neither any ancient legend or traditional supernatural claims 
to produce; like the needy knife-grinder ‘‘ Story I have none to tell, 
sir.’ The bead may be endowed with properties rendering it a pana- 
cea for colic and several additional maladies, or it may be quite as well 
qualified as other crystal balls, described by me, to cure cattle-plague 
and stamp out foot-and-mouth disease, better than modern Acts of Par- 
liament or a Privy Council order, though I cannot lay claim on its 
behalf to these distinctions, for the bead has never received a fair trial 
since I became its owner. Or it may be powerful to foretell fortunes 
and reveal passing events, similar to Dr. Dee’s magic mirror: but I fear 
we would require the assistance of a pure-minded person to succeed 
with the divination, who might possess the rare and needful qualifica- 
tions which would enable him to understand the hidden meaning of that 
filmy evanescent moisture which deposits on quartz, in common with 
all cold surfaces, when it is brought into warm and damp rooms; and 
who would further have sufficient faith and imagination to interpret, 
in a manner capable of satisfying others, what those particles of depo- 
sited dew meant, and compel them to yield up their concealed Cassan- 
dra-like predictions. 
Some months have elapsed since I purchased this bead, and I was 
given to understand it was brought from one of the midland counties, 
I believe Meath, where an itinerant dealer procured it from the person 
by whom it was found : he could tell nothing of the circumstances under 
which it had turned up. Compared with the crystal spheres in this 
Academy its dimensions are moderate, being twenty-seven millimetres 
in diameter ; the rock crystal composing it is clear, translucent, almost 
limpid, and the sphere is perforated by an aperture of large size, five 
mm. wide ; when the bead is placed on end, and this perforation viewed 
from above downwards, the rapid expansion of the cylindrical tube 
into a cone might, without difficulty, be regarded as somewhat super- 
natural and not altogether canny: and it is easy to understand the influ- 
ence of such an idea upon the untutored mind of an individual living 
one or two thousand years ago; for some of these crystals lay claim to 
histories of long duration, though I am convinced several are not en- 
titled to it, nor can they give adequate proofs of such remote antiquity ; 
and there are good grounds for concluding that identically similar 
balls of rock crystal continue to be manufactured in the East, in China, 
and Japan, even to the present day. 
On referring to the Catalogue of our own Museum, which recalls to 
us the labours of Sir William Wilde, and forms a lasting monument of 
his archeeologic skill, we find these interesting crystals received from 
him due attention, and he offers us a clear and satisfactory account of 
them. Of true crystal balls we now possess three specimens. 
No. 1 measures in girth 62 inches; it originally belonged to the 
Scottish family of the Campbells of Craignish, Argyleshire ; the large 
erack noticed in it is reported to have been caused by its owner drop- 
ping it on a hearthstone. It came into the Museum several years 
since, and is traditionally asserted to have appertained at one time to 
