Referring again to the subject of amber, as the objects placed in Roman sepulchral urns were always chosen because of some supposed religious or talismanic quality, there is considerable significance in the fact that an urn of this type, preserved by Cardinal Farnese, contained a piece of amber carved into the figure of an elephant. Coming down to modern times, there is record that the Macdonalds of Glencoe handed down as heirlooms four amber beads said to cure blindness, and there seems reason to conjecture that this substance was sometimes credited with being an antidote for the poison of snake bites, as a small perforated stone used as late as 1874 in the Island of Lewis for this purpose appears to be a semi-transparent amber.[131] Indeed, amber set as a jewel to cure rheumatism is said to be offered for sale in London to-day, and the writer has learned that the late Rev. Henry Ward Beecher long carried amber beads with him to ward off this malady. II On Meteorites, or Celestial Stones It is somewhat difficult to obtain trustworthy accounts regarding the occurrence of meteorites in medieval and ancient times, as there was a strong tendency to confuse the real meteorites with flint arrow-heads and hatchets derived from the stone age. A number of interesting facts bearing on the history of certain real or supposed aerolites were given in a recent lecture delivered by Prof. Hubert A. Newton in New Haven, Conn.[132] Some of the more striking instances are here presented. As an illustration of the way in which meteorites may have come to be reverenced in former times, we have the modern instance of a stone that fell in the region north of Zanzibar, on the East African coast, and was seen and picked up by some shepherd boys. At first all the efforts of the German missionaries to buy this stone were fruitless, because the neighboring Wanikas looked upon it as a god, and, after securing possession of it, proceeded to anoint it with oil, clothe it with apparel and decorate it with pearls. They also built a temple wherein the stone received divine honors. This worship endured for some time, but when, three years later, the nomad tribes of the Masai swooped down on the Wanikas and burned their villages and massacred many of the inhabitants, the Wanikas lost all respect for the stone and were glad to part with it. This conduct was, after all, not entirely unreasonable, since the fetish had failed to prove its divine power. [Illustration: By Courtesy Soule Photo Co. THE “MADONNA DI FOLIGNO,” BY RAPHAEL In the Vatican Collection, Rome. The white curve in the middle of the background shows the passage of the meteor to the earth. ]