“During my recent travels,” Dr. Sidney Hickson writes to a scientific contemporary, “I was frequently asked by Dutch planters and others if I had ever seen a ‘cocoanut stone.’ These stones are said to be rarely found (one in two thousand or more) in the perisperm of the cocoanut, and when found are kept by the natives as a charm against disease and evil spirits. This story of the cocoanut stone was so constantly told me, and in every case without variations in its details, that I made every effort before leaving to obtain some specimens and eventually succeeded in obtaining two. One of these is nearly a perfect sphere, 14 mm. in diameter, and the other, rather smaller in size, is irregularly pear-shaped. In both specimens the surface is worn nearly smooth by friction. The spherical one I have had cut into two halves but I can find no concentric or other markings on the polished cut surface. Dr. Kimmins has kindly submitted a half to a careful chemical analysis and finds that it consists of pure carbonate of lime without any trace of other salts or vegetable tissue.” On this letter Mr. Thistleton Dyer remarks:— “Dr. Hickson’s account of the calcareous concretions occasionally found in the central hollow—filled with fluid—of the endosperm of the seed of the cocoanut is extremely interesting. The circumstances of the occurrence of these stones or pearls are in many respects parallel to those which attend the formation of tabasheer. In both cases mineral matter in palpable masses is withdrawn from solution in considerable volumes of flint contained in tolerably large cavities in living plants and in both instances they are monocotyledons. In the case of cocoanut pearls the material is calcium carbonate and this is well known to concrete in a peculiar manner from solutions in which organic matter is also present. In my note on Tabasheer I referred to the reported occurrence of mineral concretions in the wood of various tropical dicotyledonous trees. Tabasheer is too well known to be pooh-poohed, but some of my scientific friends express a polite incredulity in the other cases.” The specimen presented by Mr. Skeat to the Cambridge Ethnological Museum is encircled by a black ring which is caused, it is said, by its adherence to the shell of the cocoanut. These cocoanut pearls are of much interest and may perhaps be included amongst the mineral curiosities which comprehend tabasheer, apatite, etc. Ancient philosophy would probably associate them with the sign Cancer as is the case with pearls found in seas and rivers. Swedenborg writes that pearls are Truth and the knowledge of Truth, celestial and spiritual knowledge, faith and charity. CHAPTER XXVII PERIDOT—RUBY