those in which this has evidently been done. The
popular taste is never the liighest taste, and in catering
for the fancy of the hour, lady amateurs, who dispose
of their labour at a low price, should bear in mind
their poorer sisters in art, whom they may drive out of
the market, which, like other markets, is in its lower
departments greatly overstocked with applicants for
employment. The professional section contains the
efforts of many whose names are associated with the
production of good work, among such being Aldan
Heaton, A. S. Benson, and the firm of Starkie, Gardner
& Co. No. 364, by Fred. E. E. Schenck, and a vase
by the same artist, are worthy of special mention, as is
also much of the plaster-work exhibited by the firm of
M'Gilvray & Ferris; but a comparison of the work in
this section with similar examples in the Loan Galleries
should serve as a useful reminder of the much that yet
remains to be accomplished. The arrangement of the
objects on loan is at once effective and pictorial.
Rarely are objects seen to a better advantage, and
none but an artistic eye could have superintended
their disj)osal. Li these days, when the machine
seems to rule us all, it is refreshing to see work in
which mechanical aid played so unimportant a part ;
and one cannot but think that beauty which is created
by the hand of man, that, in fact, which we call art,
is not the clever application of mechanical forces or of
scientific inventions, but is brought to light, whether
it be a cabinet front or the Venus of Milo, often with
pain, always by the entire devotion of the laboui-, the
intellect, the experience, the imagination, and the affec-
tion of the artist. Francis H. Newbery.
JADE IN SCOTLAND.
EVERY science, art, or trade has its special
puzzle or ' conundrum, which sometimes
passes ' through the ages ' before it is answered, and tiiat of archfBology has long been, ' Whence did the pi-ehistoric neolithic men of Europe obtain the jade from which they made their choicest axe-heads or celts.?' Much has been set forth on this subject, a learned German having even written a very large volume on it, without being able to come to a conclusion. The circimistanee which led to my solution of this problem was so curious, tiiat a narration of
it can hardly fail to interest the i-eader.
I had several Chinese friends, members of the
Legation in London, all of them highly educated
and generally well-informed, who frequently visited me. Once I had visited the island of lona, and brought away a handful of the green pebbles which every pilgrim thither has for a thousand years taken with him as a souvenir. One evening, after speaking of Buddhist pilgrims from China, and of those who are believed to have gone to Mexico in the fifth
century a.d., I thought of the lona pilgrims, and
showed my guests the green pebbles. They ap-
peared to be impressed or astonished on examining
them to a degree hicb was to me incomprehensible,
and held a long and animated conversation over
them in Chinese. As tiiey seemed to value the
stones, I divided the latter among them, and if they
had been large diamonds my friends could not have
been more grateful.
I suspected there was something in it all, and
wrote a letter the next day to the resident clergy-
man at lona, asking him to kindly send me some
good specimens of the green pebbles. He (Mr.
Jenkins) did so. Not long after, in Philadelphia, I
submitted my best specimen to Prof. Jose25h Leidy,
who declared it to be, not nephrite, but true pure
jade of the best quality. Then I understood why
my Chinese friends had been so much interested in
the pebbles. Every Chinese gentleman who pre-
tends to refined culture is a connoisseur in jade, and
tiiey had recognised the wonderfully rare and beauti-
ful mineral.
Should examination prove that jade exists hi situ
in ' workable quantities ' in lona, it will be for Scotland a very valuable discovery. As a material for
the most beautiful and delicate art-work, it is literally without equal. No other stone has such a
peculiar creamy slight transparency, while the dark green, and yet diaphanous, variety (like my specimen), which is rare and very valuable, surpasses any agate in richness. These better or choicer kinds must be sought for. Nearly all the lona pebbles which I have seen were of a soft light green stone of little value; and in like manner the Tartar source from which China is supplied yields a very small proportion of valuable material. Owing to the long closing of these mines by the Mahometan war, and the subsequent dangerous condition of the country, jade has of late years advanced in price several hundred per cent., as most bric-a-brac collectors know to their sorrow. It is to be desired that any of the readers of the Scottish Art Revieio who possess information on this subject would publish that knowledge.
Chaiu.ks G. Lf.i.axd.
