But the record is still fragmentary. in Saxony, and in the amber districts on We have to piece together thousands of the Prussian shores of the Baltic. shreds of broken clay and to trust to the Scientific men, in the language of minscattered and half-collected relics of a eralogy, say that jet is a variety of coal; single Assyrian library. Just enough has that it occurs sometimes in elongated been revealed to us to show what incal- masses, sometimes in the form of culable treasures still lie buried under branches, with a woody structure; that the sands and marshes of the far East. its fracture is conchoidal or shelly, its The libraries of Babylonia, numerous lustre brilliant and resinous, and its and rich as they are, still remain unex-colour velvet black; that it is about plored at all events by Europeans, for twenty per cent. heavier than water; that Mr. Smith has found that one of those at it burns with a greenish flame, emits a Babylon has been broken into by the bituminous odour while burning, and Arabs, and its contents will soon be lost. leaves a yellowish ash. But the Whitby A corner only of Assyria, so to speak, folks can adduce many reasons for thinkhas as yet been examined; and the re- ing that jet, in some of its forms at any sults of Mr. Smith's brief and hurried rate, must have been at one time in a diggings last year in the palace of Assur- semi-liquid state, quite unlike coal debanipal prove how much is to be discov-rived from a ligneous origin. Mr. Simpered even there. And beyond Chaldea son, curator of the Whitby Museum, lie the ruined cities of a civilization older even than that of the Accadians; the relics of the once mighty kingdom of Elam. The monuments that line the shores of the Persian Gulf or are hidden among the highlands of Susiana are still untouched. Here indeed there is a vast field for work; and it may be hoped that the example set by the proprietors of the Daily Telegraph will find many imitators, and that some small portion at least of the wealth of which we boast may be devoted to the revelation of that past without which we can neither understand the present nor provide for the future.

Queen's Coll. Oxon.

A. H. SAYCE.

From All The Year Round.
WHITBY JET.

states that that collection comprises among its specimens a large mass of bone which has had the exterior converted into or replaced by jet. This jet coating is about a quarter of an inch thick. The jetty matter appears to have entered into the pores of the bone, and there to have hardened; during this hardening or mineralizing process the bony matter has been gradually displaced and supplanted by jet, the original form of the bone being maintained. Another reason for thinking that the jet or some of it, must once have been in a gummy or semi-liquid state, is that bits of vegetable and mineral substances are sometimes found imbedded in it, as flies, wings, and small fragments are in amber. Cavities and fissures in the adjacent rocky strata are also sometimes found filled with it, as if it had flowed into

stratum

them originally. The called "jet-rock," in which the Whitby JET, a sort of semi-jewellery in its jet is mostly found, is a kind of shale, usual applications, is one of those many which, when distilled, yields ten gallons substances which have a kind of mysteri- of oil per ton. That in a remote geoloous brotherhood with coal. The beauti-gical era there was an intimate relation ful pearly white paraffin for candles comes from coal; so does the benzoline which we use in our handy little sponge lamps; so do the gorgeous magenta and aniline dyes and pigments; and so, some people think, does jet. In this lastnamed instance, if coal is to be mentioned at all, we should rather say that jet is a kind of coal, not that it is produced from coal. Be this as it may, jet, a shining black substance, is found in seams dissociated from all other black minerals: not in the coal regions, but in other districts of England, notably near Whitby in Yorkshire. It occurs also in Spain,

between this oil and the jet is very probable; though its exact nature cannot now be determined. The Yorkshire coast for many miles north and south of Whitby is a storehouse of jet. The deposit occurs in the lias formation, the jet-rock being interlaid with other lias strata. Two kinds are found in different beds or layers, the hard and the soft jet. The hard, which is in all respects the best, occurs in detached compact layers or pieces, from small bits no bigger than dominoes to pieces of many pounds, weight. The largest piece recorded measured six feet long, five to six inches

wide, and an inch and a half thick; it weighed nearly twelve pounds. The British Museum authorities refused to give ten guineas for this fine specimen; whereupon it was sold for fifteen guineas to a dealer, who had it carved into crosses of exceptionally large size.

and sold. About thirty years ago, Mr.
Bryan, the chief representative of the
trade, obtained the largest "find" of jet
ever known, from a spot in the neigh-
bourhood called the North Bats; it com-
prised three hundred and seventy pieces,
or stones,"
,"valued at two hundred and
fifty pounds. There were fifty work-
shops engaged in the trade at the time of
the first Great Exhibition in 1851; the
number now exceeds two hundred.

For how long a period jet, or black amber as it was at one time called, has been found and worked near Whitby, no one can now say; but the time certainly ranges over many centuries. In a tu- According to an interesting account of mulus or barrow, opened in the vicinity this industry by Mr. Bower, the jet is obof the town, was found the skeleton of a tained by two modes of operation, clifflady-supposed to have been ancient work and hill-work. Pieces of jet washed British, before the date of the arrival of out by the sea from fissures in the face the Danes and with it was a jet ear- of the cliff are, indeed, sometimes picked ring, two inches long by a quarter of an up on the beach; but these are few in inch in thickness, shaped like a heart, number, unreliable for purposes of reguand pierced with a hole at the upper end lar trade. In cliff-work, portions of the for the reception of a ring or wire. An face of the cliff are hewn down, until ancient document affords presumptive seams of jet are made visible; and the proof that jet was known and used for jet is picked out from these seams, so purposes of ornament before the found-long as it can be got at. This is someing of Whitby Abbey. Caedmon, a Sax- what dangerous employment, owing to on poet, buried in this abbey, wrote some the precipitous nature of the cliffs. In lines which have been modernized hill-work, diggings are made in the

thus

Jeat, almost a gemm, the Lybians find;

But fruitful Britain sends as wondrous kind;

'Tis black and shining, smooth and ever light,

'Twill draw up straws if rubbed till hot and bright!

Cleveland hills, near Bilsdale, about twenty miles inland from Whitby. Tunnels are driven into the hillsides, driftand jet-rock is thus laid bare in various ways and lateral passages are driven, spots; picks and other instruments extract the pieces of jet, which small wag

This last allusion is to the electrical qual-gons running upon a tramway bring to ities of jet, which are very considerable, the tunnel's mouth. The find is always and somewhat like those of amber precarious, especially in cliff work; whence its occasional name of black sometimes no jet is obtained in a month's amber. The substance was, in the mid- work; while, in other instances a lucky dle ages, made at Whitby into beads and hit will bring to light a valuable harvest. rosaries, probably by the monks or friars. At present the hill-work is most adopted, As a branch of regular trade, Whitby and there are about twenty small mines jet work was of not much account till at the Cleveland hills. The men rent the about the beginning of the present cen- workings, as at the Cornish copper and tury. The Spaniards made the principal tin mines; their profits represent their beads and rosaries for Roman Catholic wages, and depend on the ratio between countries of a soft kind of jet; but when the richness of the seam and the rent English ladies began to wear jet as paid; insomuch that the miners have mourning jewellery, the superior hard- every motive for exercising judgment and ness of the Whitby material induced discrimination in the bargains they may some of the townsmen to attend to this make. The best hard jet will realize, kind of work. The first workers em- when in large pieces, thirty shillings per ployed nothing but knives and files in pound; whereas the poorest soft pieces fashioning the ornaments; but one are barely worth a shilling a pound: Matthew Hill gave an extension to the these extremes are separated by many trade by finding the means of turning the intermediate gradations of value. jet in a lathe - a more difficult matter Whitby hard is the finest jet known, havthan turning wood, owing to the brittle- ing more toughness and elasticity than ness of the material. In a short time any other, admitting of more delicate there were ten or twelve shops in Whit- working, and taking a higher polish. On by where jet beads, necklaces, crosses, the other hand the Spanish soft is better pendants, and snuff-boxes were made than the Whitby soft; and experts

The

say that many ornaments sold in the and carving the links separately, splitting shops as genuine Whitby, came from some of them, and inserting the unsplit beyond the Pyrenees, and were never into the split links; small wires are inmade of Whitby jet at all. They look well at first, but are apt to break up under the influence of sudden heat and cold, and are in other respects far from durable. This fragility is believed to be due to a small percentage of sulphur which most Spanish jet contains.

serted where necessary, and the split closed up with a cement of shellac and resin. Pendants, ear-drops, &c., are linked in a similar way. Some of the jet, when rough-cut at Whitby, is bought by Birmingham jewellers, who finish it according to their own taste.

Whitby suspects that Scarborough affects to look down upon it as a poor imitation of a fashionable watering-place. At any rate, a newspaper in the latter town poked fun at the jet trade of Whitby not very long ago: "All towns have their peculiar industries, and jet is well known to be the industry of Whitby. Jet meets you at every turn and in every shape; even the large black Newfoundland dogs, glossy from their bath, sit as if carved out of jet. Surely no modern manufacture of trumpery ever rivalled this in ugliness. With a refinement of cruelty, some insert sections of ammonites in it; others (this is the ne plus ultra of richness) surround it with a fretwork of alabaster; and you may buy a card-tray of this glittering, inconclusive material, with the classic features of Victor Emmanuel staring at you from the bottom. One wonders who can buy such things; but there are some people who must have the speciality of the place they are in, however base and trivial it may be. Those who acquire mosaics at Rome, beads at Venice, inlaid wood at Sorrento, carved paper-knives in Switzerland, iron brooches at Berlin, marble paper-weights in Derbyshire, and all the fun of the fair' wherever they go, will surely not fail to carry away some dark memorials of Whitby."

Let us suppose that pieces of jet, varying much in size and shape, are brought to the workshop. The rough jet has a kind of exterior skin or crust, often marked by impressions of ammonites and other fossils, and presenting various tints of bluish brown. This skin is removed by means of a large chisel. At the sawing-bench the piece is then cut up with saws. This process requires much discrimination, seeing that the size and shape of the piece must determine the kind, size, and number of ornaments obtained from it; the great object is to waste as little of the substance as possible. From the saw-bench, the jet passes into the hands of the carvers and turners. The turning is effected by a careful use of small lathes. The carving is effected by grinding rather than cutting, grindstones of various kinds being used, and the jet applied to them in succession first to grind away, and then to polish. In this way most of the beads, necklaces, bracelets, crosses, brooches, lockets, chain-links, &c., are made, as well as basreliefs, floral designs, and monograms. A clever workman will get twenty per cent. more value out of the same piece of jet than a man of less skill and judgment, by adapting his design to the size and shape of the piece. Soft jet is much wasted during working, by the presence of fibres, grit, &c.; it is therefore better This may be all very well as a passing fitted for beads than for intricate orna- skit, but is not worth much as an arguments. Much use is made of the cutting ment. Whether jet is a suitable material mill, a disc or wheel of soft metal, for small ornaments is surely a matter of about eight inches in diameter; the edge, taste, as it is in regard to coral, black or rim, made sharp and set in rapid revo-pearls, and bog oak. The jet trade is lution, cuts the jet quickly and smoothly. increasing, and now gives employment to The surfaces of the carved or turned or- fifteen hundred hands in Whitby and its naments are polished by being held neighbourhood. The influence of fashion against the edge of a revolving wheel, is shown in a remarkable way when the covered with walrus or bull-neck leather, death of any great personage at court is and wetted with copperas and oil. The announced, such as that of the Duke of edges, scrolls, curls, and twists, require Wellington, or of the Prince Consort: at that the wheel edge shall be covered with such a time Whitby can hardly meet the list; and then comes a final application sudden demand for jet jewellery suitable to a brush-wheel. The beads for neck- for mourning. Once now and then, howlaces, bracelets, &c., are put together ever, the joy of the nation is the sorrow with strong twisted threads and small of jet dealers. When the Prince of wires. Chains are made by turning Wales lay prostrate with illness, dealers

purchased somewhat largely, in order to
be prepared for eventualities. When the
Prince recovered there was a larger stock
of jet jewellery ready than the public
wanted, and so the commodity did not
"look up
"in the market.

substances, smooth and black, but not taking so high a polish as jet. Black glass does duty for a large quantity of cheap mourning jewellery, innocently supposed by many of the wearers to be jet. Another substitute is wood-powder, blacked, moulded, and hardened. A still more remarkable material is paper pulp, cast or pressed into blocks, rolled into sheets, cut up, ground on wheels, blacked, and polished. But, naturally enough, these substitutes for the genuine article find no favour in Whitby.

From The Academy.

A LETTER OF LAURENCE STERNE.

Whitby and Birmingham are trying to improve the designs for jet carvings and turnings; and there is no doubt room for improvement. When a new start was given to the trade at the first great Exhibition, the Art Journal engraved some new designs suitable to this peculiar material. The beneficial result was seen at the next Exhibition eleven years afterwards; and still more decidedly at the second of the two annual International Exhibitions, when jet ornaments took their place in the jewellery display of that year. Two or three years ago the Turners' Company of London having offered IN the short autobiography which prizes for meritorious specimens of turn- Sterne left behind him, he says that at ing in wood, ivory, and other material, the the time of his marriage his uncle Jaques judges were agreeably surprised at having and himself were upon very good terms, placed before them a vase turned in jet." for he soon got me the prebendary of The Whitby maker had skilfully cemented two or more pieces together, to obtain a sufficient bulk of the substance for the purpose; and his honorary reward was, the freedom of the City of London. Jet is usually found in such thin seams that nearly all the ornaments and articles made of it are flat and of small thickness; cementing is occasionally adopted, where two pieces are suitable for being joined face to face; but all attempts to work up fragments, cuttings, turnings, and powder into a paste or homogeneous mass, have hitherto failed. This can be done with amber, and with the meerschaum clay for pipe-bowls; but no mode has yet been devised for adopting the same course with jet.

York, but he quarrelled with me afterwards, because I would not write paragraphs in the newspapers; though he was a party man, I was not, and detested such dirty work, thinking it beneath me. From that period he became my bitterest enemy." The events of Sterne's life previous to his emerging to fame in 1759 with his first two volumes of Tristram Shandy, are little known, and the researches of Mr. Percy Fitzgerald for the biography of Sterne which he published about ten years ago, threw but little light upon the circumstances which helped to form the character of such an eccentric writer. It is, therefore, important to record that among the autograph letters recently purchased by the Trustees of the As in most other trades, a love of British Museum are two, written by Laucheapness acts frequently as a bar to the rence Sterne and his uncle respectively attainment of any high degree of techni- in 1750, which have considerable literary cal skill. A shopkeeper will show his lady and biographical value. We believe that customer two jet brooches or necklaces this letter is the only Sterne autograph almost exactly alike in appearance; she in the possession of the Museum, with is prone to select the cheaper of the two, the exception of the original manuscript regardless of the fact that the other pre- of The Sentimental Journey, and it has sents higher claims as a specimen of art been therefore most appropriately placed workmanship. If called by its right in one of the public rooms for inspection. name, an excellent material of recent in- Thanks to the courtesy of the keepers of troduction would deserve much commen- the MS. Department, we have been aldation; but when announced as imitation lowed to make a complete transcript of jet, and still more when allowed to pass it, which we print here at length. The for jet itself, it deserves the censure that Rev. Francis Blackburne, to whom it is is due to all shams. We speak of ebon-addressed, will perhaps be remembered ite or vulcanite, a very tough material, as the author of the Confessional, which prepared with india rubber and other raised a considerable ferment in its day.

- Bid him be gone & seek Another fitter for his turn. But as I was too angry to have the perfect Faculty of recollecting Poetry, however pat to my case, so I was forced to tell him in plain Prose tho' somewhat elevated That I would not preach, & that he might get I told you above, that I had had a confer- a Parson where he could find one. But upon ence with Hilyard upon this subject, and in- Reflection, that Don John had certainly exdeed should have said to him, most of what I ceeded his Instructions, and finding it to be have said to you. But that the Insufferable-just so, as I suspected there being nothing ness of his Behavour (sic) put it out of my in yr letter but a cautious hint And being Power. The Dialogue between us had some-moreover satisfyed in my mind, from this and