ON JADE AND KINDRED STONES. 
347 
cylindrical seals which are so exquisitely engraved with figures 
and arrow-headed inscriptions. It appears, however, that jade 
was likewise used by the Assyrian engravers, for there is at least 
one cylinder in the British Museum which is described as being 
of this material. 
On the whole, then, it appears that jade, though unquestion- 
ably employed by prehistoric man in Western Europe, was but 
little known in the great centres of early civilization in the 
East. By Gfreek and Roman artists the material was rarely, if 
ever, used ; the engraved celt, alread}^ referred to, being a 
solitary example of Greek engraving, and only upon a stone 
which had been worked into shape by an earlier and a foreign 
hand. Nor was the material used, so far as we know, by 
mediaeval artists. Indeed, Mr. King, the great authority on 
antique gems, after referring to the introduction of jade on the 
Spanish conquest of America, says : 66 Even had the jade been 
known at an earlier period, the ancient love of the beautiful 
and their correct taste would have prevented their throwing away 
their labour and time upon so ugly and refractory a material.” * 
If so unfavourable an opinion is shared by other connoisseurs, 
though assuredly no lover of Oriental art will join in the con- 
demnation, it is no wonder that jade has not been used in 
modern times by European artists. Of late, however, a small 
quantity of a beautiful green variety of jade has been imported 
in the rough from New Zealand, and has been cut and polished 
both in this country and in Germany into the form of ear-drops 
and other trivial objects of personal ornament. 
It will have been gathered from the foregoing part of this 
article that the term jade has been vaguely applied to a number 
of different mineral-substances more or less akin in their 
physical properties, and all capable of being used for ornamental 
purposes. Even the most experienced mineralogists have, 
until within the last few years, included under this term two 
or three substances which agree in possessing various shades of 
green colour, and in having an extreme toughness, but which 
differ widely in chemical composition. It is desirable, before 
closing this article, to clearly differentiate these several 
minerals. 
In 1846 M. Damour published an analysis of a piece of the 
well-known whitish Oriental jade, which had been carved in 
India, f From his analysis he concluded that this kind of jade 
was essentially a silicate of magnesium and calcium, and might 
be regarded as a form of hornblende, comparable with the 
* “Antique Gems,” by the Rev. 0. W. King, M.A., 1860, p. 98. 
t “Analyse du Jade Oriental ; reunion de cette substance a la Tremolite.” 
“ Annales de Ckimie et Physique,” s6r. iii. t. 16, 1846, p. 469. 
