This is one of the younger group of minerals: it was discovered
by a German scientist in 1828. For its age it is an exceptionally
interesting stone—if it is a stone. Its most eminent and distinguishing
peculiarity is described as the “property of parting with minute
splinters from its surface upon being handled, these splinters
or spicules piercing the hand, producing a pain similar to that
experienced by contact with a nettle.”
In the mineral kingdom pectolite ought to take high rank, near the very
throne. In its power of annoying man it is a formidable competitor
to several illustrious members of the vegetable kingdom, such as the
nettle, the cactus, the poison ivy and the domestic briar. There
are, indeed, several members of the animal kingdom which hardly
excel it in the power of producing human misery. Considering its
remarkable aptitude in that bad way its rarity is somewhat difficult to
understand, and is perhaps more apparent than real. Professor Hanks
says that previously to its discovery in California it had been found
in only eight places. If upon investigation these should turn out to be
Europe, Asia, Africa, North and South America, Australia and the two
Polar continents, the unnatural discrepancy between its objectionable
character and its narrow distribution would be explained away, and
pectolite seen to be “in touch” with its sister malevolences, whose
abundance is usually in the direct ratio of their noxiousness to man.
In his efforts to make this uncommon mineral known, advance its
interests and bring it into closer relations with mankind, Professor
Hanks is winning golden opinions from the manufacturer of arsenic, the
promoter of the Canadian thistle, and the local agent of the imported
rattlesnake. The various uses to which it can be put are obvious and
numberless. As a missile in a riot—the impeller wearing a glove,
but the other person having nothing to guard his face and eyes—its
field of usefulness will be wide and fertile. Small fragments of it
attractively displayed here and there about the city will give a rich
return of agony when thoughtlessly picked up. For village sidewalks
inimical to the thin shoe of the period it would be entirely superior
to the knotty plank studded with projecting nail heads. With a view
to these various “uses of adversity,” it would be well for Professor
Hanks to submit careful estimates of the cost of quarrying it and
transporting it to places where it can be made to do the greatest harm
to the greatest number. To assist and further the purposes of Nature,
as manifested in the character of the several agencies and materials
which she employs, is the greatest glory of science. A human being
assailed by all the natural forces, seizing a stone to defend himself
and getting a fistful of pectolitic spiculæ, is a spectacle in which
one can get as near and clear a glimpse of the Great Mystery as in any;
and science is now prepared to supply the stone.