consciousness had now taken up its seat there. Terrified by this unusual phenomenon, I asked myself and enquired unto myself carefully, but I only became the more convinced that my power of perception had become greater and more comprehensive. This intellectual clearness was associated with great pleasure. I did not sleep, nor did I dream.... I had occasionally had ecstasies but these had nothing in common with this condition of the stomach in which it thought and felt and almost excluded all co-operation of the head. This state continued for two hours after which I had some dizziness.” Van Helmont writes of the “Sun tissue” in the region of the stomach which from the earliest recorded times has been identified with the zodiacal Virgo around which so many myths, parables and legends cluster. Jasper is associated with this part of the body of man, and to dream of it is said to symbolise love’s faithfulness known to the mind before the heart: “_Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind, And therefore is Dan Cupid painted blind._” Amongst the symbolic jewels of the Rosicrucians this stone was regarded as the centre stone of the vibrations of light and of its penetrating diffusions. All varieties of jasper are under the celestial Virgo. JET “_Your lustre too ’ll draw courtship to you as a iet (jet) doth straws._” BEN JONSON. The name jet is derived from the Greek GAGATES, from GAGAS, a river in Syria. It is also written as jesstone, and jeetstone. Dr. Murray gives the following forms gete, geet, get, geete, geyte, geitt, gett, gette, geytt, gate, giette, geate, ieet, iete, ieit, ieate, iet, jeat, jett, jette. It is a variety of coal resembling cannel coal, but harder, of deeper colour and with a higher degree of lustre. Pliny writes that “Gagates is a stone so-called from Gages, the name of a town and river in Lycia.” When burnt it gives out a sulphureous smell which, according to the Venerable Bede (7th century), drove away serpents. Its virtue was esteemed in cases of hysteria, in detecting epileptic tendencies and in loss of virginity. A decoction of jet in wine was esteemed as a cure for toothache, and in combination with wax it was used in cases of scrofula. Magicians, it is said, make use of Gagates in the practice of what is known as “Axinomancy”—a form of magic in which a piece of jet is placed on a red-hot axe—prophesying events according to the burning of the substance. Jet is highly electrical and will attract fluff in the same way as amber does, hence it was known as Black Amber, especially in the 16th century, by the people of the Baltic coast. It was much used in magical ceremonies, especially those in connection with the dead, as a charm against evil magic, spells and envy, and as a cure for dropsy, colds, chills and loss of hair. The fumes from burning jet are no doubt