grease it was regarded by ancient writers as a preventive of or cure for baldness. In the Orphic Lythica it is stated that holding this stone to the head, the voices of the gods could be heard, heavenly knowledge gained and divine things seen. It is here advised that one should sit alone in earnest meditation asking the celestial powers for guidance or help in some particular trouble, when the reply flowing through the stone would be quickly sensed and understood by the sincere petitioner. A woman’s moral character was said to be betrayed by the lodestone which endowed strength, will and the ability to look into the future. It was also carried as a charm to protect against shipwreck. It is related that after the death of his sister-wife Arsinoe, Ptolemy II (Philadelphus) planned with his architect Dinochares a temple to be built of lodestone in order that her iron statue would be held for ever in suspension, seemingly in space, but death defeated the plan. In referring to the power of lodestones Professor Noad (“Electricity”) states: “The smallest stones have greater attractive force in proportion to their size than larger ones.” Francis Barrett under the heading of “Antipathies” writes that a diamond disagrees with a lodestone and being present suffers no iron to be drawn to it. However, it is as a lovers’ token that the lodestone is most extolled; it is often found set in lovers’ rings of the Middle Ages. Claudianus in his “Idyl” published in the latter part of the 4th century gives a record of a temple wherein was a statue of Venus in lodestone, and another of Mars in iron—symbols of the attraction of the wife for the husband and of the husband for the wife. There is an old belief that the magnet was affected by the onion, and in this connection the following extract from “Notes and Queries,” December, 1917, is interesting: “The notorious Count de Benyowsky at the end of Chapter III of his ‘Memoirs and Travels’ mentions the stratagem which he tried at sea to falsify the compass by the use of iron and garlic. I now find that in the 17th century the belief actually prevailed in England that an onion would destroy the power of the magnet. Thus Sir John Pettus of Suffolk, Kt., after describing his visit as a youth to the lead mines of Derbyshire in company with Sir Thomas Bendish says that having magnetized the blade of his knife and hearing that contact with an onion would utterly destroy that power, he preferred to believe rather than risk losing his magnet. The passage occurs in a rambling note on ‘Mineralls’ in the second part of his ‘Fleta Minor.’” It might be considered in connection with such stories that the onion as well as the lodestone is of the zodiacal Scorpio. To dream of the lodestone warns of subtle dealings and contentions. It is under the celestial Scorpion. CHAPTER XX MALACHITE—NEPHRITE