Of bone amulets there is a great variety. Among those used in the British Isles may be noted a hammer-shaped type, fashioned out of a sheep’s bone, worn by Whelby fishermen as protection from drowning; similarly shaped bone amulets find favor with some London laborers as preventives of rheumatism. This is the type of Thor’s Hammer, still popular with the Manxmen. The strange resemblance of the os sacrum of the rabbit to a fox’s head has recommended its use as a talisman, or luck-bringer, and a London solicitor is stated to have owned an example which he had mounted as a gold scarf-pin, the likeness to an animal head being brought out still more by the insertion of onyx eyes.[656] The talismanic power of the turquoise is still credited in provincial England, for in the counties of Hampshire and Sussex it is believed that when two persons station themselves on opposite banks of a frozen stream or pond, on a Christmas Day, and each one slides a turquoise to the other over the ice, both of them will be blessed with good fortune for the following year and will prosper in all their undertakings. If the stream or pond were at all wide, the fact of having accomplished this feat successfully might indeed be taken as proof of considerable dexterity, and might perhaps indicate that one who could succeed in this little exploit had a chance of making his way in more important matters. The natural markings on agate pebbles often present designs having some special symbolical significance, and could then be looked upon by the superstitious as amulets of notable power, much exceeding in efficacy those artificially formed. A strange instance in illustration of this is an agate pebble picked up not long since on Newport Beach, Rhode Island. This stone is clearly and definitely marked with the mystic Chinese monad, a device that is widely known in the United States from its adoption as a symbol by the Northern Pacific Railroad. A limestone pebble with peculiar markings is in a private collection in New York. This somewhat resembles in shape the famous magatama jewel of the Japanese, and the markings suggest that, like the latter, it may have had a phallic significance, or at least one connected with the worship of the reproductive powers. The markings indicate an attempt to figure an undeveloped being, and possibly the object was intended for use as an amulet to facilitate parturition. The prevailing reaction against the purely materialistic beliefs so generally accepted a score or more of years ago, finds expression in a marked tendency toward a renewal—in a greatly modified form, of course—of the old fancies or instinctive ideas touching the virtues of gems. Thus one modern writer at least was bold enough to suggest not long since that “the efficacy of charms and precious stones may be recognized and placed on a scientific basis before many years are passed.”[657] [Illustration: