23 
AGATES AND AGATE-WORKING. 
By F. W. RUDLER, F.G.S. 
[PLATE II.] 
M OST of our fashionable watering-places offer to the visitor 
an attractive display of agates and other siliceous stones, 
worked into a vast variety of ornamental forms. From the 
abundance of these agates it might fairly be assumed that the 
rough stones are to be had upon the neighbouring beach for 
the mere trouble of gathering them. It is true, there are 
many spots along our coasts where the diligent seeker 
occasionally finds a pebble which, dull as it may seem on the 
outside, needs but the touch of the lapidary’s wheel to bring to 
light its 
11 Chalcedonic beauties, fair and bright.” 
Such pebbles, however, are as a rule by no means common, 
even in localities of repute ; and it may be safely said that on 
no part of the English coast could agates be found sufficiently 
large for the manufacture of paper-knives, bowls, vases, and 
many other objects commonly exposed for sale. Moreover, 
these objects are generally offered at so extremely moderate a 
price that, wherever the raw material may be found, it is clear 
that it must be cut and polished in some locality where labour 
is much cheaper than in England. Usually, however, the 
inquirer considers such difficulties solved when he learns that 
the stones in question are German agates. Yet this explana- 
tion, as we shall presently find, is far from satisfactory. Indeed, 
we believe that, as a matter of fact, no agates worth naming 
have for many years been obtained from German soil ; and 
although the old agate-mills are still active they have long 
been working exclusively on imported stones. We have, there- 
fore, no more right to call such stones “ German agates ” than 
we should have to speak of a piece of Carrara marble as 
“ English marble ” simply because it happened that it had 
been worked into form by the chisel of an English sculptor. 
The true history of these agates, the localities whence they are 
