Black Stone

“ A black Stone is of bad signification, and leads to a Jam (a black thick Stone, that hinders their work.) A grey cleer dry one they account best. They seldome encounter Damps. If in linking they come to wet moorish Earth, they exspect a Jam, and to be closed up with Rocks. ”

“ If he takes out the white one without any burn he wins his case. He who gets the black stone is sure to be burnt, and loses his case. Should he who gets the white stone be slightly burnt, it means he has partially spoken the truth, and wins half his case.
Ordeal by Hot Stone.—The stone is made hot by the blacksmith, taken out of the fire with tongs, and placed on a brass dish. The man’s hands are washed as before, examined to see what marks there are produced by labour, and the hot stone placed in the palm. ”

“ Mohammedan tradition teaches that the Black Stone was sent from heaven and was once pure and brilliant; it only grew black because of the sins of men. Legend relates that Abraham stood on this stone during the construction of the Kaaba. ”

“ They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen, though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.
And what was the Great Stone Face?
Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the steep and difficult hill-sides. Others had their homes in comfortable farm-houses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level surfaces of the valley. ”

“ My father climbs, and we must join him on the summit. Come!”
She took his hand and raised him to his feet, and together they began the rough ascent towards the Crag. As they passed along the shore of the Tarn of Blood, he saw the fire reflected in the ink-black waters; he made out, too, though dimly, a rough circle of big stones, with a larger flagstone lying in the centre. Three small fires of bracken and wood, placed in a triangle with its apex towards the Standing Stone on the distant hill, burned briskly, the crackling material sending out sparks that pierced the columns of thick smoke. ”

“ It made me bless the Lord at heart for casting my lines in a quiet land, where a man beholds no craggy menace, black rush of blind tempests, bottomless gulfs, unfathomed forests, and peaks that would freeze him into stone. For the people that live there must be in a wild condition always; to tremble at Nature's fury, or to shudder at her majesty, or look around on all that wraps them up, with desolate indifference.
I glanced at Stoneman walking briskly with his gun upon his shoulder, and death to at least a dozen woodcocks in the keen flash of his eyes ”

“ But by reason of the sins of the multitudes of people who kiss it, it is become black, and is now called Haggar Esswaed, or the Black Stone.
�This place is so much frequented by people going round it, that the place of the Towoaf, i.e. the circuit which they take in going round it, is seldom void of people at any time of the day or night. ”

“ At first the Stone was whiter than milk, but it grew to be black, either by the touch of a certain class of woman, by the sins of mankind, or by the kisses of the pilgrims. All believers, whatever may be the cause to which they attribute the change of colour, agree that the defilement is purely superficial, the inside of the Stone being still as white as the driven snow. ”

“ If this stone is pure and of a fine colour, underneath at its base it will have brown stone upon which it grew, and if any little vein or point were to come out above the black stone itself, then it is known as very genuine indeed, and of greater value, because it is a sign of being a true turquoise, and for greater certainty putting upon it a little virgin lime, white and moistened like ointment, the lime will appear coloured. ”

“ Meanwhile the older, softer granite overhead was weathering and turning to soil and eroding away. Some went to extend the coastal area of southeast Georgia and some to help build up the rich black belt of South Alabama.
In the two hundred million years since the intrusion, the two-mile-thick overlay has eroded down to its present level, leaving the hard core of Stone Mountain standing up like a great gray egg. The surface of the mountain wears very slowly—scuffing feet of millions of visitors have left barely discernible marks along the western trail. ”

“ It is constructed of gray Mecca stone, in large blocks of different sizes, joined together in a very rough manner, and with bad cement. At the northeast corner of the Kaaba, near the door, is the famous Black Stone, which forms part of the sharp angle of the building at four or five feet above the ground. It is an p. 34irregular oval of about seven inches in diameter, with an undulating surface, composed of about a dozen smaller stones of different sizes and shapes, well joined together with a small quantity of cement, and perfectly smoothed. ”

“ The tint must not be too light or too dark in shade: a stone that has barely any colour has little interest, and one which is too dark appears almost opaque and black. The lapidary can to some extent remedy these defects by cutting the former deep and the latter shallow. In certain curious stones—for instance tourmaline—the transparency, and in others—such as ruby, sapphire, and one of the recent additions to the gem world, kunzite—the colour, varies considerably in different directions. ”

“ Now in that neighbourhood there was a negro who pretended to that kind of magic which is commonly supposed to belong to Vaudos or other heathen rites, although most of those who practise it claim to be Christians. He determined to set his black lore against that of the foreigners; and succeeded not only in finding the stone but in partly lifting it also. Then there was a sudden rush of enemies whom he could not see, and he felt blows falling all over him as he was fleeing headlong down the mountain-side. Nobody has ever found the magically-anchored stone since that day. ”

“ I guess Doc Champ had already caught sight of the Ice Stone. But I hadn't; and now with my first glimpse of it, the thing did look exactly like ice. It was like a huge, square block, set flush with the face of the cliff, and with that ledge forming a pathway up to it.
"Queer," I heard Doc Champ muttering. "All the legends pertaining to the Ice Stone mention its black appearance. That stone doesn't look black—it looks transparent."
"Its color has recently changed," explained Rog Tanlu. "It isn't a stone, or any material substance. ”

“ And the wall, built out of a hoard of these, as it were disdaining this thing, counterfeits to unify the adjacent parts; it seems not to exist by art but rather by nature; not a thing united, but one. Another costly material of black stones props the work, not like this content with one colour, not open with so many pores, but shining much with glory and settled with firm position; and it deigns to be tamed by no iron, save when it is tamed by cunning, when the surface is opened by frequent blows of the grit, and its hard substance eaten in with strong acid. ”

“ In the augitic traps, the crystals are sometimes of large size and well-defined, so that the rock could hardly be distinguished at first sight from an ordinary grey granite, while at other times, and not unfrequently even in other portions of the same mass, the stone assumes a black appearance without distinct crystals. ”

“ Cary's Warming-stone promised a warmth for six or eight hours; if it performed but for two or three hours, it would be of great use. 'Tis found by sad experience, how hurtful Bright Fires, and especially of Stone-coal are to the Eyes.
To retain Fire long, certain Black Earths are useful, as we were newly informed by the Inquisitive Dr. B. That a Gentleman in Sommertsetshire, called Mr. Speke, had bountifully obliged Ilminster, and his Neighborhood, by a Black Fat-Earth lately found in his Park. ”

“ Professor Soldani saw another stone, said to have fallen from the cloud, which had the figure of a parallelopiped, blunted at the angles; and was as it were varnished, on the outside, with a black crust; and quite unlike any stones whatever of the soil of the country where it had fallen.
Two ladies being at Cozone, about 20 miles from Siena, saw a number of stones fall, with a great noise, in a neighbouring meadow: one of which, being soon after taken up by a young woman, burnt her hand: another burnt a countryman's hat: and a third was said to strike off the branch of a mulberry tree ”

“ The stone in quarries is found to be of different and unlike qualities. In some it is soft: for example, in the environs of the city at the quarries of Grotta Rossa, Palla, Fidenae, and of the Alban hills; in others, it is medium, as at Tivoli, at Amiternum, or Mt. Soracte, and in quarries of this sort; in still others it is hard, as in lava quarries. There are also numerous other kinds: for instance, in Campania, red and black tufas; in Umbria, Picenum, and Venetia, white tufa which can be cut with a toothed saw, like wood. ”

“ And so deeply had he descended now, that the sunshine, silver rather than golden, already streamed past far over his head along the ridges, and no gleam found its way to where he was. The shadows, too, no longer blue and purple, had changed to black, as though woven of some delicate substance that had definite thickness, like a veil. Across the opposite slope, one of the mountain summits in the western sky already dropped its monstrous shadow fringed with pines. ”

“ Other stones, such as ‘fired’ zircon, white sapphire, white topaz, and rock-crystal, may dazzle with brilliancy of light reflected from the surface or emitted from the interior, but none of them, like diamond, glow with mysterious gleams. No hint of colour, save perhaps a trace of the blue of steel, can be tolerated in stones of this category; above all is a touch of the jaundice hue of yellow abhorred. It taxes all the skill of the lapidary to assure that the disposition of the facets be such as to reveal the full splendour of the stone. ”

“ The mountains, with their shining heads piercing through light clouds into that wonderful blue of the western sky, and their feet pushed into the pine masses, gazed down upon Black Rock with calm, kindly looks on their old grey faces. ”

“ The sandstone of Leo’s Hill remains, so architects tell us, the only rival of granite, as a means for the perpetuation of human monuments. Even granite wears less well than this, in respect to the assaults of rain and flood. The solitary mysterious monoliths of Stonehenge, with their unknown, alien origin, alone seem to surpass it in their eternal perdurance.
As far as Nevilton itself is concerned everything in the place owes its persuasive texture to this resistant yet soft material. ”

“ It had been in old times the camping-place of the blacks, and upon the largest of the three gigantic stones, which disposed in the form of triangle, seemed to point to the triple peaks of the triform mountain, human sacrifices had been held, and horrible banquets celebrated. The earth, pawed by my impatient horse, was black and rich--strangely black and rich when compared with the surrounding soil, and the three enormous trees that overshadowed the three alter-stones seemed to own roots fed with fat food, so vigorously had they upsprung from out the rock. ”

“ Below, between the towering, oppressive, liver-coloured cliffs and the foam-mantled, blanched blue sea lay the Black Rock, a huge, flat, monstrous table cast off by the land and spurned by the sea.
For a while the two men stood speechless on the edge of the cliff overlooking the barren waste of heaving waters and the sullen ramparts of indomitable heights. The deep boom of the bursting wave, the roar of the outwashing boulders, and the shrill hiss of the falling spray, made the dismal scene more deserted and forlorn. The sea and cliffs were forbidding to man. ”

“ It dominated the landscape somewhat ominously. The sheep and cattle had used it as a rubbing-stone, and bits of hair and wool clung to its rough, weather-eaten edges; the feet of generations had worn a cup-shaped hollow at its base. The wind sighed round it plaintively. Its bulk glistened as it took the sun.
A short mile away the Blood Tarn was now plainly visible; he could see the little holm lying in a direct line with the Stone, while, overhanging the water as a dark shadow on one side, rose the cliff-like rock they called “the Crag.” ”

“ And through them, faint, thread-like as a far-off echo, she heard another voice—whether of child or angel she knew not: “You’ll find it up by the Stones, where the giant hare-bells grow. It’s the most precious thing in the world, and when you find it, keep it—always—always—always!”
The giant hare-bells! There they grew at the foot of that grim Stone where the child had lain all night, unafraid because God was there. She saw them, pale in the moonlight, and in memory of little Ruth she stooped to gather one. ”

“ The road winds and curves in an interminable pattern, finding its way, by trial and error it seems, among the great granite spires that give the region its name. These “needles,” through the last of which the highway actually plunges in a tunnel, are the remains of a great granite plateau which once covered that entire portion of the Black Hills. Contrary to popular opinion, the rocks are not outthrusts, the 34 result of some ancient upheaval, but the last thin vestiges of this once-solid plateau. The age-old process of erosion has carved them into the shapes they now have ”