THE SNIPE.
He was a mean-looking man, to say the least of it. Even the coat he wore was a mile too big for him, albeit some time in the far-distant past it might have graced the shoulders of a country squire. Yes, he was decidedly mean-looking, nor did his character, as it came out, belie his appearance.
He shuffled when he walked and he snuffled when he talked, and was altogether unwholesome and undesirable. He and I were the only two—ahem!—gentlemen that stood on the little railway platform of B—— on a cold November morning, waiting for a late train that only stopped by signal.
Having been three or four times round the Cape and twice in the Polar regions, I dare say I look simple. Anyhow, it wasn’t long ere this mean-looking man addressed me.
‘Begging yer parding, sir,’ he said, ‘but could ye spare a trifle to a pore man wot’s got a starving wife and five babs dependin’ on ’im for a lively’ood. Maybe, sir, you’d buy these ’ere ’orns. I seed yer was a lookin’ at ’em, and I seed ye were a gent, sir, soon’s ever I clapped eyes on yer.’
He carried three nicely polished sets of ox-horns in his arms—a large, a medium, and a small.
‘They are very nice indeed,’ I said. ‘Are they attached to the skull?’
‘Oh dear, yes, sir,’ he said; ‘a piece of the skull were a-sawed out for the sake o’ the lovely ’orns, sir.’
‘And where might they come from?’ I asked; ‘and what might be their value?’
‘They belongs to the wild buffalo of the plains of Arfriker, sir. My nevey brought ’em ’ome. Been refused fifteen pound for ’em. You shall ’ave ’em for five, sir, ’cause I can see yer a gent. If I can’t sell ’em, sir, they’ll ’ave to be broke for combs, and that would be a peety, sir, them bootiful harticles, quite a hornament for any gentleman’s ’all like yourn.’
‘Sorry I can’t trade to-day,’ I replied, as I jumped into the train.
I saw no more of the man, for though he alighted at the same town as I did, he sidled his way through the crowd, making determined attempts, one would have thought, to gouge eyes out in all directions with his ‘bootiful ’orns.’ I saw no more of the man, but strange to say I did of the ‘’orns’ that same evening. They had been sold to a friend of mine for just five times their value. They had never come from Africa, of course; the larger pair had at one time probably adorned the head of some Highland bull. The others were probably English.
I do not believe this mean-looking man had polished those horns himself. He looked far too lazy for that; but in justice to the ’orns, if not to the man, I must say they were very well done indeed, and would have made, as he said, ‘quite a hornament for any gentleman’s ’all.’
There is no end to the beautiful articles that can be manufactured from hoof or horn. Stuffed heads with the horns polished look very nice on the walls of rooms or in halls. I was in the drawing-room of a Highland cattle-breeder of fame the other day, and was both surprised and delighted to find on the walls, in recesses and places where there was room, not only the horns but heads, with necks and a portion of the brisket attached, of old favourites looking at me.
A ram’s head, with the crooked horns attached, makes a beautiful snuff-box. The box itself lies between the horns—or rather in the forehead—and is of silver, the lid usually adorned with a gigantic cairn-gorm. My Scotch readers know the sort of thing I mean.
But here we are again with another snuff-horn, more cheaply manufactured too. You simply get a shortish cow-horn and beautifully polish it; then another round flat piece of polished horn to form the lid. To this is attached, by means of silver nails, a piece of cork big enough to fit nicely into the mouth of the horn, and not more than an eighth of an inch thick. Then the lid is complete, and any watchmaker will hinge it on for you. Get also a little heart-shaped bit of silver, let into either the lid or the back of the horn, with the initials of the giver and the givee, thus: ‘From A. H. to W. H.’
Still another—a horse’s hoof. And there are many, many more which I do not at present remember, and need not enumerate if I did. But if you wish to see the many lovely articles that can be manufactured from polished horn, I prithee station thyself for a few brief moments anent a good jeweller’s window in any large city or town in the kingdom, and keep your weather-eye lifting.
Have you ever heard the Latin proverb, Aut Cæsar aut nullus? The English translate it, or paraphrase it, ‘Neck or nothing.’ I have heard a Scotchman speak of a boy in the following terms, which embody the same sentiment: ‘That boy will either make a spoon or spoil a horn.’
Now, then, if you are going to try your hand at horn-polishing, you must please bear that motto in mind, ‘Aut Cæsar aut nullus.’ You must either make a spoon or spoil a horn. But as horns are very cheap in the rough, it does not matter much if you do spoil one or two. Only this sort of work requires patience—and not only patience, but a deal of hard rubbing and much expenditure of elbow-grease.
Well, get your horns first. Where? you ask. You may go to your butcher and explain what you want, and he will tell you that the horns are sawn off with the hide and sent to the tanner’s thus. But if he be a civil man, as most butchers are, he will keep a pair for you, and he will probably knock them off, not saw them, so that you will be at once free from the awkward piece of bone that runs up the first portion of the centre; otherwise you would have to get this taken out.
Now the tools you want are not numerous. A very handy, and in some cases indispensable, one is what is called a spokeshave. It is for paring down the rough surfaces. It is a handy tool for woodwork as well, and as it costs only about eighteen pence, it is as well to have one among your tools. Just let me pause here for one instant to repeat a warning I have given more than once before. Never buy bad cheap tools. What are called boys’ boxes of tools are, as a rule, mere toys—an insult to any growing lad who really means to do proper work. Make your own tool-box; buy your tools separately, and see that they are good. Indeed, it would be as well to get them second-hand at a broker’s shop. No matter if they be a little old so long as the steel is good, and the woodwork neither worn nor cracked.
Well, you must have a good knife with several blades—not a mere pot-metal cheese-cutter. This knife will come in handy for paring and for scraping. And what I myself have found very handy is a piece or two of plain window-glass. Glass makes a capital scraper, and when the edge goes off you have only to break it again and you find another. I shouldn’t wonder if you found a piece of sticking-plaster handy too. Do you know how to bind up a cut? Well, get any dirt there may be in it out first. Then, when the bleeding has stopped, bring the edges together with two or three narrow bits of plaster, leaving a tiny outlet for oozing, put a rag over all, and there you are.
The spokeshave is only to be used in paring down all the rough portions of your horn, and you must work with, and not against, the rough laminæ, that is, from and not towards the points of the horn. You will have a difficulty in holding your work, because the spokeshave is best used with both hands. You may fasten the horn in a vice or on the end of a stick, or any other way that occurs to you.
After the spokeshave the knife will come in handy, but you must have an even surface, and all stains must be removed. You will find the horn get harder and whiter beneath, and semi-transparent. It is down to this you want to go, but no farther.
Then after the knife comes your bit of glass, and while working with this, wherever you see any part out of symmetry, work carefully on that till you get all even and nice. When this is done half the work is finished.
When you have pared and scraped and cut down all unevenness, and have at last got a fairly plain surface by dint of hard labour with spokeshave, knife, and glass—perhaps a fine file may have aided you through some intricacies; this tool comes in handy enough when you want to polish bent horns—then you must have recourse to emery-paper. This is very cheap, and is sold in sheets of different fineness at colour shops or oil-merchants’.
Begin by using the roughest, then finer and finer.
Be tidy with your work. The dust that comes off horn is one of the best things in the world for soiling the waistcoat or nether garments. So place your horn over a piece of brown paper. You thus save your dress and save your dust as well. Put the latter in a saucer, and a drop or two of olive or colza oil over it. Mix and use it with a bit of chamois leather to polish with, after you have finished with the emery-paper or emery-paper and water.
If you feel discouraged and disappointed at want of gloss and beauty, depend upon it you have not worked hard enough. So you must go on again. Use next tripoli, or rouge, or both, first mixed with a little olive oil, and finally dry. Tripoli is the name given to a kind of infusorial earth, which was first found in Tripoli. It is now obtained in certain districts of the United States, and in many parts of Europe.
The name rouge may be somewhat misleading, there being so many different kinds of it. Ladies use a rouge composed of chalk and carmine. This will not do so well for polishing horn. I believe, however, if you take equal parts of carbonate of iron and prepared chalk and rub them up together in a mortar, you will form a very nice rouge for the purpose of polishing either horn or plate. Polishers’ putty-powder is another article used for finishing off horns.
Well, you must put your final touches to the horn or hoof with simple chamois or prepared wash-leather, and after this it ought to shine as if waxed.
You will know by this time that in a horn there is a densely solid tip, and also at the other end a hollow part. The thinner end is used for making combs, etc. It is softened in boiling water, then exposed to a flame till partially fluid, then cut into the shapes desired. In this state the horn can be pulled flat if wished. After it has been pressed and prepared, the piece of horn, comb, or whatever it happens to be, is scraped and polished in the way we have described.
A great many useful articles are made from the solid or tip portion of horns, a great many useful and very beautiful articles, some of which are turned by the lathe, while others are cut. Whip-handles, stick and umbrella handles, and handles for knives and small tools, may be made from horn and afterwards scraped and polished. Goats’ and sheep’s horns are clearer and more transparent than those of the ox. They are not more easy to work on that account, however, but being clear they take staining better. They should be polished before being stained.
I am not sure whether those useful liquid dyes that are sold in the shops would do for staining horn, bone, or ivory, because I have never tried them, but I think if used boiling hot and the articles to be stained thereby were immersed in them for some time, the stain would be permanent. You see I have classed bone, horn, and ivory together, because in this case what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Here are receipts for a few stains:—
Black.—You may stain these substances black, and wood also, by frequent immersion in hot ink, or by leaving them for a few days in the ink, or in a solution of nitrate of silver, twenty grains to the ounce.
The latter preparation is poison, remember, and it will burn and stain the clothes or anything it may come in contact with.
Black may also be got by boiling in a strong decoction of logwood, and afterwards placing in a bath of acetate of iron.
Purple.—This colour is obtained by boiling in a strong decoction of logwood and alum until the proper tint is acquired. It must be done in an enamelled saucepan, else the colour will be a failure.
Red.—You may steep the article in hot red ink, letting it lie for a day or two. See that you get the best and brightest ink procurable. But you may also get a nice colour by first steeping for ten minutes in dilute nitric acid, then immersing in a decoction of cochineal or cochineal dissolved in liquid ammonia.
Scarlet.—This colour is acquired if you steep the articles or boil them in a decoction of brazil-wood or in madder, and then in a solution of muriate of tin.
Blue.—Steeping in a strong solution of sulphate of copper will impart a light blue. If dark blue is wanted, the article must be boiled in a solution of sulphate of indigo in which a little salt of tartar has been dissolved.
Green.—This is got either by boiling for a time in a solution of verdigris in vinegar, or an article already stained blue by the process above mentioned may be steeped in nitro-muriate of tin.
Yellow.—Immerse for a day or two in a solution of chromate of potash, then for a few minutes in boiling-hot solution of sugar-of-lead. Or you may reverse this order and steep first in the sugar-of-lead solution, then in that of chromate of potash.
Now to return for a moment to our horns. After you have nicely polished them you will naturally want to set them up. To do this you must get a piece of thick softish wood, and shape therefrom something in the semblance of a piece of the animal’s skull and forehead that the horns originally belonged to, leaving at each upper side a piece of wood, rounded, some inches long. To these elongated corners you fix the horns. The next thing will be to cover the wooden skull with something resembling the skin of the animal. Real skin, well preserved, will of course suit best, and it is to be brought round and tacked on the nether side. But black or brown astrakan cloth will generally do very well.
Your work is now finished, and you may hang the horns in your hall if you have one; if not, they will look well above the mantelpiece.
Very nice powder-horns may be made in the same way. Lads who wear the kilt, or Highland dress, sling these in a chain over the chest and shoulders, and handsome ornaments they make.
Bones of any kind are polished by paring, scraping, and rubbing in precisely the same way that horns are; and so is ivory, though it is much more difficult to work owing to its hardness. It is also very expensive.
Tortoiseshell requires great care in polishing, because it is thinner than horn, and you are apt to cut through it. Scrape it carefully first with a knife, then with glass, then with very fine glasspaper and water, or bath-brick and oil; next with rottenstone and oil. But the rottenstone must be specially prepared for the purpose. It should be pounded in a mortar—what a handy thing a mortar is for purposes innumerable! and it is not at all an expensive article—pounded well, and afterwards run through fine muslin. It is used mixed with oil.
The final polish for tortoiseshell is obtained by rubbing hard and well with jewellers’ rouge (a preparation of calcined oxide of iron). This is used upon a piece of prepared washleather.
Imitations of tortoiseshell are made from horn. The horn is a clear sort, and generally brought from the South of Europe. The pieces of horn are softened by steam, pressed flat, polished, and afterwards stained. They are then smeared here and there with a composition made for the purpose, and which may be got in the shops. Before this is put on, the horn is steeped in a weak solution of nitric acid. The paint is left on for a time and afterwards rubbed off, when it will take a polish, the stain remaining as if burned in. I think the paint is composed of litharge and quicklime, equal parts, mixed in whiting-and-water.
Seashells are pretty when polished. There is a deal of stuff to be worked off the outside of them, however, before you get down to the coloured or beautiful portion. Do this by scraping after you have steeped the work for some time in dilute aquafortis.
Practise on a mussel-shell first. Get a good large one. Polish with emery-paper and oil, finishing off with polishers’ putty and oil and rouge. When you have polished your mussel-shell, mount it by means of cement on a small polished slab of marble. It makes a most beautiful paper-weight, and you will find, too, that in this simple shell you have an excellent model of the hull of a yacht.
Stones.—These require, first and foremost, to be sawn into the shape you want them. Then the work must be held firm in a vice while you do the polishing. Soft stone and water are used to begin the smoothing-down. The stone used is called ‘grit-rock,’ and is of different kinds, the finest being used last. Next a stone is used, the popular name of which is ‘snake-stone,’ then polishers’ putty-powder, etc.
Beautiful ornaments can be made from various kinds of stone, and from marble itself.
The art of stone-polishing on a small scale is a very pretty one, and not at all difficult to get up to. I mentioned a vice to hold the work, but a wooden contrivance like what you may see on a carpenter’s bench will do even better. If you have an iron vice, and determine to use it, you must roll your work partially up in old canvas or leather, else the iron will scratch it.
In the art of polishing either stone, shell, or horn, any boy may soon become an adept. It is not half so difficult as it at first appears, only hard work, energy, and perseverance are most certainly required.
DR. GORDON STABLES, R.N.
An endless variety of delights can be enjoyed by the sea. Bathing, boating, fishing, paddling, building sand-castles and forts, engineering experiments in canals and ponds, prawning, shrimping, collecting shells, anemones, and seaweeds, sailing toy-boats, cricket and tennis on the sands. Well, now, you boys who love the pleasures of the seaside, my purpose here is to introduce a new attraction to your notice. The amusement we are going to bring before you possesses more solid and lasting attractions. What say you to PEBBLE-HUNTING as a seaside recreation?
Pebble-hunting is a resource calculated to excite high enthusiasm. It brings us into familiarity with some of the most beautiful objects in Nature. Pebbles can be obtained free of expense. Nature’s inexhaustible treasure-house is always open. She invites you to approach and help yourself at will. She offers with unstinting hand stones of imperishable beauty. It is ungracious to scorn her liberality.
We propose, then, to give particulars of British pebbles—how to recognise those worth collecting, where to look for them, and how to cut and polish them for yourselves. No writer for boys, so far as I know, has ever yet given practical instructions about cutting and polishing stones. The best pebble unpolished looks dull and dead. The polishing brings out its beauty and makes it a lasting treasure. The polishing is nothing else than rubbing the pebble smooth. A flint pebble is so hard that when rubbed perfectly smooth it reflects light just as glass and water do. Nothing is put on to make the surface shine, as in polishing wood. The pebble is merely rubbed smooth; and when this is done, the surface proves to be so hard that no instrument of the hardest steel, not even a file, will produce upon it the faintest scratch. I am speaking of flint-pebbles or agates, which are to be found upon many beaches.
The first difficulty is, how to recognise the good pebbles, as they lie amid the countless host of less interesting stones. I often hear the question, ‘Can you tell what a pebble will be like inside before you cut it?’ The answer is ‘Yes’ and ‘No.’ I can tell so far that I should not labour at cutting and polishing an obviously worthless stone; but, alas! often a stone which gives good promise on the outside proves uninteresting when cut, and so is laid aside on the shelf as an example of unrequited toil not worth any further trouble. This is inevitable. But, far from being a discouragement, such disappointments only serve to stimulate the zeal and sharpen the faculties in discriminating the real prizes.
We must not start with an idea of finding gems upon our beaches. These exquisite objects are exotics, natives principally of dark mines and sunny strands in the far East. The diamond, sapphire, ruby, topaz, peridot, emerald, beryl, tourmaline, turquois, chrysolite, garnet, and precious opal, are not for us. The magnificent agates of India and Brazil are familiar to us when artificially stained and manufactured into bracelets, brooches, penholders, &c., and exhibited in the jewellers’ shops. Splendid specimens in their natural tints may be seen cut and polished in the Geological Museum, Jermyn Street, in the Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, and elsewhere. But we shall never find such stones on our own beaches.
Oriental and Brazilian pebbles are not unfrequently palmed off upon innocent and unsuspecting visitors as the genuine products of some favoured beach within her Majesty’s British Dominions. A lady once told me that she picked up in a week a quantity of splendid onyxes at a watering-place—let us call it Rocksands—and had them ground and polished into a necklace of beads. Another showed me a beautiful brown onyx, set in gold, which she found (?) in the same neighbourhood. A third assured me that a friend of hers had picked up amethysts and topazes on the same beach. This was at the time when I first began to take an interest in pebbles. The summer holidays were approaching. My portmanteau was packed; I was off to Rocksands.
The long journey was at last accomplished, and the omnibus set me down at the Royal Hotel; when three steps and a jump landed me upon the famous beach. It was crowded with persons of both sexes and all ages. I never saw so many backs bending at one time for the same purpose. They carried baskets, which gradually groaned under the weight of minerals amassed. For three days I joined the glad throng, comparing notes with many treasure-seekers, and collected some hundred and fifty stones possessing better pretensions to celebrity than the obviously worthless specimens.
I took them to one of the lapidary establishments. They are so kind at Rocksands in looking over visitors’ findings and pronouncing upon their merits. The lapidary establishment was crowded. At last my turn came. With beating heart I displayed my beach upon the counter. ‘Oh yes; that’s a fine red carnelian; that’s an onyx, that’s a topaz; that’s a mocha stone; that’s a weed-agate. If you’ll come on Saturday they shall be ready.’
I came, and received some beautiful foreign agates, cut and polished ready for brooches, such as are imported wholesale from Germany, where they work the lapidary-wheels by water-power, and prepare the foreign stones at small cost. At any seaside place, in the attractive shops on the esplanade, you can buy for a shilling a magnificent onyx or agate brooch. It cost me from two shillings to half-a-crown each to have my Rocksands treasures cut and polished! And what were the stones which I actually took to the lapidary? Nothing else than absolute rubbish—pebbles of coarse quartz, slate, and porphyry!
Some years after this a gentleman living at Rocksands collected a number of stones, principally ‘amethysts and carnelians,’ as he was told. He forwarded me two of his finest specimens. They were pebbles of inferior quartz, but I cut and polished them to convince him, and his eyes were opened to the truth. Another forwarded me a stone which had been in his possession for years, prized and habitually shown to friends as most valuable. I wrote back, ‘You found that stone at Rocksands, and were told that it was an amethyst. It is not worth stooping to pick up!’ He replied that I was correct in the locality, but asked me to cut and polish it, notwithstanding the unflattering verdict. I did so, and his eyes were likewise opened. Lapidaries are not, as a class, unprincipled, but some of them seem to find it hard to resist the temptation of imposing upon the simplicity of the public.
A few words about the topaz and amethyst. They belong to the magnificent sapphire group, very precious and exquisite crystals of alumina. Never by any possibility will such stones be found upon our beaches, unless some eccentric person sows them. They are Oriental gems, and I believe they have never been found in England. But there are crystals of quartz (pure flint) which closely resemble in colour and transparency the true topaz and amethyst. Such crystals are found on a large scale in cavities of rocks and mountains—e.g., in the ‘druses’ of the Alps. There are splendid crystals of smoky-brown and straw-coloured quartz found in the Grampian Mountains, known as ‘cairn-gorms.’ Now there is no reason why fragments of such crystals should not be found upon a beach rounded into pebbles, but I do not believe they have ever actually been found in England. A letter in a London daily paper some time ago stated that such amethysts were common in some parts of Ireland. It would be more correct to speak of them as pebbles of amethystine quartz. I have some good specimens of Irish amethysts from the Island of Achill. The so-called amethysts of Rocksands have no pretensions even to transparency.
If I were to tell you that in Cornwall they mend the roads with amethysts you might smile. But it is not so very far from the truth. I have a piece of granite picked up on a new-laid Cornish road full of beautiful crystals of amethystine quartz. The lady pebble-seekers and others might do well to travel west!
The pebbles we really do hope to find are moss-agates, ring-agates, chalcedonies, carnelians, choanites and other fossil-zoophytes, jaspers, conglomerates, shell-agates, variegated flints, and beetle-stones. There are besides large flint ‘geodes’ containing beautiful crystals of quartz, caskets of jewels from the chalk strata, but these are not suitable for cutting and polishing. It is fine exercise to go out with a stout hammer ‘flint-smashing’ under the cliffs of Beachy Head. Splendid treasures of crystal are to be found there, but they cannot be improved by artificial treatment.
Cairn-gorms are now very rare. I once made a pilgrimage into the heart of the Grampians, hoping to find some specimens, but without success. I also spent a day on the beaches of Loch Tay, having read in a mineralogical book that beautiful agates are to be obtained there, ‘in which the imaginative Highlander sees the lakes and mountains of his native land.’ There also I had no success; the nearest approach to agates that I found were fragments of old glass bottles; and I returned with the melancholy conviction that those bottles, when entire, must have contained a certain spirituous liquor dear to the heart of the ‘imaginative Highlander,’ under the influence of which his imagination was excited to set a false value upon the ‘chuckey stones’ at his feet.
A few simple definitions will assist progress. Chalcedony is a form of very pure translucent flint, often also transparent, sometimes tinted with delicate shades of blue, purple, pink, orange or brown. Choanite is the name given to a fossil-zoophyte of the sea-anemone class, with central funnel-shaped body (‘choanos’ is Greek for a funnel), and tentacles radiating from every part. Moss-agate is the pretty name given to chalcedonic pebbles, containing moss-like ramifications in various colours—pink, blue, black, orange, red, and yellow—due to the presence of metallic oxides, and often, no doubt, to the actual colouring matter of some zoophyte round which the pebble originally formed. Conglomerate pebbles contain fragments of chalcedony, flint, etc., embedded in a matrix of different character, presenting an appearance somewhat resembling almond-rock. Translucent, transmitting light, but not the outlines or colours of objects behind it. Transparent, transmitting light, and also the outlines and colours of objects behind the light.
Some of the best hunting-grounds for pebbles are the beaches of our south coast. Taking the map, we may notice in order Dover, Folkestone, New Romney, Dungeness, Hastings, Eastbourne, Brighton, Worthing, Bognor, Littlehampton; in the Isle of Wight—Sandown, Shanklin, and Ventnor: the Chesil Beach, Seaton, and Sidmouth. Here are plenty of shingly beaches for you to choose from, and chalcedonic pebbles are common upon them all. So let us take a ramble, it does not much matter where.
Suppose we select the Chesil Beach, the most extensive accumulation of shingle in the British Isles. There is room to breathe under the frowning heights of Portland Bill, and the sea is so grand! If you wish to be impressed with the majesty of Nature, walk on the Chesil Beach after a fresh gale from the south-west, and the grandeur of the sea will be before you in all the magnificence of its strength.
Here we are! What a wonderful sight! The sea on both sides; nine miles of terraced shingle stretching in a great curve right away west to Bridport Harbour. Millions multiplied by millions of rounded pebbles! How can we possibly find the beauties among such an infinite host? The prospect is indeed vast, almost bewildering. But we will at once circumscribe the portion of beach to be searched. The sea fortunately happens to be calm, and the tide is ebbing. We will confine our attention to the narrow strip just out of reach of the waves, which is not yet dried by the sun. It is a great advantage to hunt upon a wet beach, because the colours and characters of the pebbles are more vividly shown when they are wet than when they are dry.
Now, then, keep your eyes open. You need not stoop. Walk upright, shoulders well back, head merely inclined forward, and eyes as sharp as a ferret’s. You must not get round-shouldered by pebble-hunting, or what will the drill-sergeant say? There is no necessity to stoop at all, except to pick up a stone.
See, there lies one almost transparent. You could not help noticing it. Pick it up and hold it to the light. See its pure, delicate, lustrous substance, a pale grey tint. That is chalcedony—pure flint. Look at it carefully. Now you know the kind of ‘stuff’ we are looking for. It is so clear and glassy, such a perfect oval shape, that it seems a shame to pitch it into the sea. Yet we cannot afford to keep it, for if we once began putting the clear chalcedonies into the bag, it would be filled in a hundred yards.
‘But why,’ you ask, ‘if this is a chalcedony, pure and perfect, must we throw it away?’ Because it is too perfect! It would merely resemble dull glass if cut and polished. There is no incidental beauty about it, no variety of colour and texture, no trace of any animal organism in it. It is too pure. We want the same article adulterated, so to speak, by Nature’s handicraft. We want to find the same substance containing some exquisite workmanship. We want to find such a pebble with some ‘fruit’ enclosed; just as a child wants the piece of jelly containing the imprisoned strawberry, and prefers that to any other portion in the dish.
Try now to find a pebble of the same character with traces of colouring and marking. How beautiful the wet pebbles are! All colours—brown, red, yellow, orange, pale blue, pink, purple, black, white; any colour except green; that is the rarest of all.
Now here is a pebble, part of chalcedony, part of baser flint; the chalcedony tinted red and orange. Look closely into it. Notice those ‘feelers’ delicately spread, like those of a sea-anemone in a pool. Notice the central body, like the eye of a daisy. You see at a glance that this is a choanite. When cut and polished this stone is certain to be a pleasing specimen. It is a good shape; the choanite is so well displayed; there are no serious cracks or flaws in the stone. Those are the points in deciding upon the merits of choanites.
We might make either a cross-section or longitudinal section of it, or polish it all over. However we treat it, it is sure to prove an attractive specimen. Notice that portion where the feelers have disappeared, decomposed, it would seem, during the process of ‘silicification,’ or conversion into flint. The débris of the feelers has become ‘moss,’ and the beautiful tints are probably due to the actual colouring of the creature itself. They are too delicate for iron oxides.
Now let us look again. No; that is merely a common flint variegated with stains of iron. No; that one is no use; nothing organic in it. No, nor that either. Oh! you must not be discouraged; Rome was not built in a day. The excitement of hope, the expectation of finding beautiful treasures, should prevent your getting weary of search, and it will when you have found a few really good stones.
Your eyes will soon be trained to detect the prizes. It merely wants a little practice and patience, and, when the knowledge is attained, what a new world is opened up! Amid the crowd of loungers bending over every pool and rock, poking with the aimless end of an umbrella or walking-stick, picking up occasionally a bit of seaweed or a shell, you pass along unnoticed, and under their very eyes you pounce upon a real treasure—aye, and actually valuable. I was offered ten shillings the other day by a professional lapidary for a stone I found, just as it was picked up. Even if some days may prove unprofitable, still the enthusiasm of hope will buoy you up. The trout-fisher never despairs, though sometimes he returns home with creel almost empty.
There, now! You have found a genuine moss-agate. Let us sit down and examine it closely. Notice that half of the stone is coarse muddy flint, but the other half is chalcedony of a red-purple tint. See these indications of ‘moss,’ black and orange, of beautiful and delicate texture, floating in the chalcedony. Wet the pebble again to make its beauty more vivid. Look hard at it. Look into its translucent depths. Get familiar with that ‘solidified jelly,’ for when you thoroughly understand its appearance you have the key to the whole beach. The chalcedonic pebbles, when decorated with coloured markings, are called ‘agates.’ If they contain moss-like markings, they are moss-agates.
Often in a moss-agate we find evident remains of tentacles, proving that when the pebble was born it contained some zoophyte or sea anemone kind of creature, which in the process of silicification was decomposed. The substance of these agates must once have been a semi-fluent jelly like thick syrup. Perhaps the silicon was plentifully dissolved in the sea water; we cannot tell. It is a mystery of science not yet explained, therefore look with reverence upon this stone. You hold in your hand one of God’s secrets. Look at the choanite again which we found just now. That creature once lived, so frail as almost to melt in the sun when left, perhaps, on the rocks by the ebbing tide. And God has caused it to be caught in the embrace of adamantine flint, to rescue it from dissolution, and preserve it as an object of immortal beauty. The wonderful, unspeakable transformation was enacted in the waters of ocean far back in unknown ages, and the only clue to its mystery lies in that verse of the Psalm: ‘Whatsoever the Lord pleased, that did He in the earth, and in the sea, and in all deep places.’
Choanites always seem to me to speak eloquently of a Resurrection to a glorious state after death. I think of them living their humble life in ages before man appeared on this earth, clinging to rocks in unknown seas, waving their delicate arms with the movement of the waves, gathering the food brought within their reach by the beneficent hand of Him who takes thought for the meanest of His creatures. Nothing could seem less probable, than that these frail creatures should be preserved from destruction in death. God teaches us by them that He who has the power of life and death can stay the progress of corruption in the frailest bodies. They rise, as it were, from the dead after thousands of years, clothed in greater beauty and interest than they ever possessed in life. We should, perhaps, have shrunk from touching them when alive, but as found in their caskets of purest flint they are ‘laid with fair colours,’ and form objects of exquisite beauty. Thus we see them emerge from the grave in glorified form after a death of centuries. God, who ministered to their wants in life, also brought it about that their fragile bodies should not see corruption. He has given them immortal beauty, and by them He teaches us that He is able to deal in like manner with our own perishable bodies. Sown in corruption, they shall be raised in incorruption: sown in dishonour, they shall be raised in glory.
Choanites and Moss-Agates! If you only have patience and perseverance, you are sure to find specimens every time you take a good ramble along a shingly beach that has any likelihood of treasure. Some, of course, will be better than others. Experience will make you fastidious in taste. You will reject those that seem inferior in shape, or damaged and imperfect. Practice will soon teach you. Take your pebbles to a lapidary, if there is one in the town. Weymouth, unfortunately, does not boast one; but there are some at Brighton, I believe, and Hastings. At Worthing there is Mr. Dowsett, opposite the pier; at Eastbourne there is Mr. Hollobon, who has made one of the most magnificent collections of pebbles to be seen anywhere in England, all found, cut, and polished by himself during twenty-five years of labour and research. At Sidmouth there are three lapidaries. At Ventnor there is Mr. Billings, to whom, I think, the palm must be assigned as the most enterprising and skilful of the fraternity.
Take your stones, whenever you have the opportunity, to one of these; he will tell you whether they are worth polishing, and polish one for you at a small cost, if you wish, the charge being about sixpence a square inch. And more than that, he will show you really good stones, and tell you where they were found, and encourage you, if he sees you really interested in the subject.
There are other varieties of these fossil-agates, but the popular names are not worth much. You may call them all agates, and collect specimens of every variety with a view to their intrinsic beauty; and you may try and imagine what the creatures were like, and hunt them up in books as you proceed.
Let us leave the Chesil Beach and speed in a flash of thought some six hundred miles, right away to Montrose, N.B. We cross the estuary by the ferry, and walk down towards the lighthouse. Those low rocks are basaltic, or trap. In them we find a totally different class of agates—Ring-agates: see them sticking like plums in a cake. With hammer and chisel we can knock out as many as we please. Many prove hollow when cut, ceiled and paved with beautiful quartz-crystals. But others have the exquisite ringed formation, and the delicacy of the concentric bands is full of wonder. Among the rocks farther down the coast we can pick up numbers already separated from their rocky cavities by the disintegrating processes of sea and weather. I collected 300 in three days.
It is probable that the cavities in which they occur were formed by gases escaping when the soft rock was growing solid—just as cavities are formed in bread. Then water charged with silicious deposit filtered into the cavities. But no satisfactory explanation of the beautiful parallel banding has yet been set forth. Once more we are confronted by a Divine secret. In these cavities—deep places—the Lord did whatsoever He pleased.
The lapidary’s bench is a very simple arrangement, as can be seen from a glance at the sketch (fig. 1). There is no complicated machinery about it. All that is required is to turn a circular plate of lead or other material with mechanical advantage. For the rest, it is hard work with the coat off and the sleeves tucked up. Plenty of ‘elbow grease,’ energy, perseverance, and the determination to overcome difficulties. Therefore the art of polishing pebbles may exert a beneficial influence in strengthening the muscles and the character of a true Englishman.
Fig. 1.
My bench, as drawn on the opposite page, was made and furnished with the requisite apparatus by Mr. Moore, 1, Clerkenwell Green, E.C., at the cost of £5. Any carpenter would probably make the bench from the description we shall now give at the cost of £1; and a practical blacksmith could easily manage the metallic fittings. But if you are expert in the simple processes of carpentry you had much better get the wood and make a bench for yourself.
We will describe the bench most carefully, giving all necessary dimensions.
Floor of bench (A B C) is made of seasoned deal 11⁄2 in. thick. From A to B the length is 3 ft. 8 in. From B to C the breadth is 2 ft. Back, sides, and partition are of 3⁄4 in. deal. Breadth of front board (A B) is 3 in.; of back board (V C) 6 in. The legs and cross-bars are of stout deal 3 in. by 2 in. Height from A to floor of room is 3 ft. If that is too high for you stand on a stool to work, but do not make the bench any lower, because in time you will grow taller, and the bench will not. From D to floor of room 1 ft. From E to floor of room 2 ft.
Fig. 2.
The large iron wheel (W) is 1 ft. 10 in. in diameter, fixed on an iron spindle, turned with the left hand by a curved crank (H) 7 in. long, and handle (N) of any wood nicely turned and fitted comfortably for the hollow of the hand to embrace it. The strap (O) is of leather 1 in. wide, passing round the reel (G). Its ends are joined by a simple and effective method shown in Fig. 2. The strap is carefully measured to requisite length; a nail is passed through the two ends, and string wound tightly round the ends behind the nail and tied. If the strap slackens at all after much use, it can be readjusted by a piece of extra string wound tightly round.
Iron spindle (F) 1 ft. 6 in. long, with ‘lap’ (M), screw and nut (P), reel (G). Four circular laps will be required, each with its own spindle, screw, nut, and reel. The reels must be exactly the same size, so that the strap may suit them all alike. One lap is of lead, one of beech wood, one of pewter, one of deal with two layers of common felt strained over and neatly fastened with tacks on the under-side. Each lap is 10 in. in diameter, 1 in. thick at the edge, gradually sloping up to 11⁄2 in. towards centre. Spindles 1 in. square, rounded to sharp points at both ends. Reels 2 in. in diameter, of elm or box, fixed 3 in. from lower point of spindles. The laps are screwed on the spindles as shown in Fig. 1, where all measurements are given.
There is a circular hole in the floor of the bench to allow spindle and reel to pass in and out, 4 in. in diameter. The clamp (I) rises 13 in. above the floor of the bench, and is screwed into position by movable nut underneath. The movable arm (K L) is raised or lowered at will, and adjusted by screw and nut (Q). Length of arm from K to L is 71⁄2 in. A block of lignum vitæ (R) is inserted in arm. Blocks of the same wood are screwed on at S and T for the points of the spindles to work on. These points should be very sharp and only just ‘bite’ the wood, so that friction may be diminished as far as possible. When a hole is worn in the lignum vitæ the spindles can be shifted to a fresh part.