regarded as a cure for ague, melancholia, disorders of the blood, neuralgic affections and spasmodic action. As a talisman it was worn to protect against injuries, especially to the ankles, to attract friends, gain favours and realize hopes. Lapis Lazuli was used by many of the old alchemists in special work of an esoteric nature and is frequently alluded to as the Stone of Heaven in which the stars are held. It is under the zodiacal Aquarius. LIMONITE. This stone was named Limonite by Professor Hausmann in 1813 from the Greek word LEIMON, a meadow. It is a species of brown haematite (scarcely as hard as the opal) which according to Professor Dana appears to have been the result in all cases of the decomposition of other iron-bearing rocks or minerals. It is under the celestial Aries. LODESTONE “_The magnet weds the steel, the secret rites Nature attends and th’ heavenly pair unites._” (CLAUDIANUS OF ALEXANDRA.) The lodestone, which is also written though not so correctly, Loadstone, obtains its name from the Anglo-Saxon LAD, a course, LITHAN, to lead, and STAN. Another form is Lodysshestone, the stone that shows the way. It is also known as Magnetite or the ancient Magnet, from the Greek MAGNES. The lodestone or magnetite is a black iron ore of high magnetic quality, and this peculiar attracting force is said to have first indicated what we now term magnetism. According to Pliny a Greek shepherd—Magnes, by name—whilst tending his sheep on Mount Ida, found pieces of lodestone clinging to the ferrule of his shepherd’s staff. Titus Carus Lucretius, in his great philosophical work “De Rerum Natura” (about 55 B. C.), calls the Magnetite the Magnesium Stone, which he said obtained its name from Magnesia, a town in Thessaly. Another name applied to this stone is SIDERIT, but its best-known appellation in the ancient world was HERACLION, or stone of Hercules. It is interesting to recall the legend of the old Phoenician mariners, which tells that Hercules, admiring their daring and skill, desired to help them in the science of navigation. For this purpose he obtained from Helios a cup of Heraclion which always turned to the North. This seems to indicate that the mariners’ compass is of older date than the 11th century; indeed the Chinese assert that in the year 2634 B.C. the Emperor Houangti first constructed a magnetic compass. The Greek traveller and historian Pausanias in his “Helbados Periegesis” published in the second century, writes of the rough stone image of Hercules in the Temple at Hyettos, which the sick came but to touch in order to be healed of their disorders. As a stone of healing the lodestone was highly esteemed as a cure for gout, rheumatism, cramp, disorders which frequently yield to treatment wherein iron is employed. It was used during childbirth and in diseases of the generative organs. Finely powdered and mixed with oil or