In Burma[229] and Assam[230] stone adzes are called lightning-stones, and are said to be always to be found on the spot where a thunderbolt has fallen, provided it is dug for, three years afterwards. When reduced to powder they are an infallible specific |60| for ophthalmia. They[231] also render those who carry them invulnerable, and possess other valuable properties. The same is the case in[232] Cambodia. Among the Malays[233] the idea of the celestial origin of these stones generally prevails, though they are also supposed to have been used in aërial combats between angels and demons[234]; while in China they are revered as relics of long-deceased ancestors. I am not aware whether they are regarded as thunderbolts in India,[235] though a fragment of jade is held to be a preservative against lightning.[236] Throughout the whole of Hindostan, however, they appear to be venerated as sacred, and placed against the Mahadeos, or adorned with red paint as Mahadeo. It is the same in Western Africa.[237] Sir Richard Burton[238] has described stone hatchets from the Gold Coast, which are there regarded as “Thunder-stones.” Mr. Bowen, a missionary, states that there also the stones, or thunderbolts, which Saugo, the Thunder god, casts down from heaven, are preserved as sacred relics. Among the Niam-Niam,[239] in central Africa, they are regarded as thunderbolts. An instructive article by Richard Andrée on the place of prehistoric stone weapons in vulgar beliefs will be found in the _Mittheilungen_ of the Anthropological Society of Vienna,[240] and an article[241] by Dr. A. Bastian on “Stone Worship in Ethnography” in the _Archiv für Anthropologie_. [Illustration: Fig. 11.—Celt with Gnostic Inscription. (The upper figure actual size, the lower enlarged.)] The very remarkable celt of nephrite (now in the Christy collection), procured in Egypt many years ago by Colonel Milner, and exhibited to the Archæological Institute in 1868[242] by the late Sir Henry Lefroy, F.R.S., affords another instance of the superstitions attaching to these instruments, and has been the subject of a very interesting memoir by the late Mr. C. W. King,[243] the well-known authority on ancient gems. In this case both faces of the celt have been engraved with gnostic inscriptions in Greek, arranged on one |61| face in the form of a wreath; and it was doubtless regarded as in itself possessed of mystic power, by some Greek of Alexandria, where it seems to have been engraved. It is shown in Fig. 11, here reproduced from the _Archæological Journal_. Another celt not from Egypt, but from Greece proper, |62| with three personages and a Greek inscription engraved upon it, is mentioned by Mortillet.[244] It seems to reproduce a Mithraic[245] scene. A perforated axe, with a Chaldæan[246] inscription upon it, is in the Borgia collection, and has been figured and described by Lenormant.