A stone the therapeutic quality of which was specialized is the jade or nephrite. Strange to say, although there are very few places where this mineral can now be obtained,—the chief sources of supply being the province of Khotan in Turkistan and New Zealand,—in prehistoric times the stone must have been found in many different localities, since axe-heads and other artefacts of jade have been discovered in many lands both of the old and new world. When the Spaniards discovered and explored the southern part of the American continent, they came across numerous native ornaments and amulets made of jade (jadeite) and brought many of these with them to Europe. The name jade is derived from the Spanish designation, _piedra de hijada_, meaning literally “stone of the flank,” which is said to have been bestowed on the stone because the Indians used it for all diseases of the kidneys. The name nephrite owes its origin to the same idea. In ancient times jade appears to have been looked upon as a great aid in parturition, and many ingenious conjectures have been advanced as to the connection between this belief and the form of some of the prehistoric objects made of this material. Whether the Spaniards really learned from the Indians that the stone was especially adapted to cure renal diseases, or whether they only suggested this special and peculiar virtue in order to give an enhanced value to their jade ornaments, is a question not easily answered. An early notice of jade as a remedial agent appears in Sir Walter Raleigh’s account of his travels in Guiana. Treating of a people of “Amazons” said to dwell in the interior of the country, Raleigh says:[490] These Amazones have likewise great store of these plates of golde, which they recover by exchange, chiefly for a kinde of greene stone, which the Spaniards call Piedras Hijadas, and we use for spleene stones and for the disease of the stone we also esteeme them: of these I saw divers in Guiana, and commonly every King or _Casique_ hath one, which theire wives for the most part weare, and they esteeme them as great jewels.