Historic Cameos: 1339, Trajan Pursuing a Wild Boar; 1350 and 1351, Prisoners; 1349, the Exit from Jerusalem of the Victorious Army of Titus Vespasianus, the Golden Candlesticks, etc. 109 Cock and Serpent: The Cock Intaglio, “Vigilance;” The Serpent in Relief--Cameo; The Serpent’s Tail in its Mouth, “Eternity” 115 Antique Pastes 117 Fragment of Antique Paste, Basso-rilievo 120 A Chimera: Four Faces and the Horn of Jupiter Ammon 122 A Chinese Cameo 124 Aztec or Mexican 126 Aztec or Mexican 128 Odenatus and Zenobia 130 [Illustration] ENGRAVED GEMS. When specimens of any ancient art industry are brought together and classified in a museum it is interesting to compare each piece and trace the work from the hands of the different nationalities through all the transitions and changing history of past centuries. My collection exemplifies the progress in execution of engraved gems from the most primitive eras through periods of varying excellence and of inevitable decline. The quality of the execution approaches perfection and degenerates as in a geometrical progression repeating itself in reverse; advancing and improving in fineness up to nearly the end of the first century, the century of Christ, and from the beginning of the second century retrograding to the base of mediocrity at the end of the fifth century. The sixth and seventh centuries, the Byzantine period, yielded a group of principally religious cameos, abundant, curious, and of great interest. This was succeeded by several hundred years not of repose in the art, but of wretched ignorance, when man almost ceased to create a connecting link in the history of the glyptic art. With rare exceptions, the specimens of that time scarcely merit the designation of gems: it was a period that may be reasonably identified as the night of art, when, alas! in the darkness blows were stricken which destroyed and reduced to fragments much that was precious and beautiful, and vandalism, contributing nothing that was fair, robbed us of a large part of our inheritance. The progression alluded to is, in my estimation, only a question of comparative beauty. If we seek for, or are capable of appreciating, the most interesting, that which gives us history, we must find it at the beginning of that progression--the era of the Babylonians--with its messages handed down to us on their wonderful cylinders.