as THE AUSTRALIAN: NATURALIS’. 
off pieces of alabaster from monuments in churches, for use in 
plasters for various complaints, the efficacy of the application 
being attributed to its sacred source. 
_ Crystal is alluded to at various places in the Authorised 
Version. Job. 28, 17; Ezekiel 1, 22 and in Revelation 4, 6; 
21, 11 and 22, 1, in each case the term being used in a anit 
bolical sense. The words in the original Hebrew in Job and 
Ezekiel are different, and are rendered in the Septuagint by 
the Greek words hualos and krustallos respectively, the latter 
word being the one used in Revelation. There is no doubt that 
the Krustallos of Theophrastus was ordinary rock crystal or 
quartz. The Greeks used the word krustallos for ice, and con- 
sidered that rock erystal was ice congealed, and hardened by 
fire. 
In the New Testament, the word glass, occurs a number of 
times as the translation of the term hualos. Originally the Greek 
word was used for any clear, transparent stone. “TLooking- 
glasses” are mentioned in several places in the Old Testament, 
Exod. 38, 8,—“and he made the laver of brass, and the foot 
of brass, of the looking-glasses of the women,” and Job 37, 18,— 
“Hast. thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and 
as a molten looking-glass.” While in Isaiah 3, 23 they are 
amongst the enumerated ornaments of the daughters of Zion. 
In the Revised Version “mirror” is used instead of “looking- 
glass” at all these places. In the Apocryphal book Heclesiasticus 
12, 11, we have the sentence—‘And thou shalt be unto him as 
if thou hadst wiped a looking-glass, and thou shalt know that 
his rust hath not been altogether wiped away. In the New 
Testament we may refer to 1 Cor. 13, 12,—‘But now we see 
through a glass darkly; but then face to face.” 2 Cor. 3, 18,— 
“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass thq glory 
of the Lord,” and James 1, 23,—‘“he is like a man beholding 
his natural face in a glass.” In each of these cases the Revised 
Version given “mirror” instead of glass. There is no doubt 
that in Bible time the mirrors in use were not of glass, but of 
polished metal, and this is made quite apparent by the sense 
of the above quoted texts. I have already referred to the terms 
in which the expression “glass” is used in Revelation in speak- 
ing of the foundations of the New Jerusalem. 
Amber, the elektron (from which our word electricity is 
derived) of the Septuagint and of Theophrastus, is correctly 
translated in the Authorised Version (Ezekiel 1, 4 and 27 and 
8, 2), where the colour of the fire in the prophet’s vision is 
