d-hand for quite trifling sums.

Jade or Spleen Stone.

Among the rarer curios of the home are those wonderful ornaments cut and
carved out of jade, a beautiful stone which has been so highly prized by
the Chinese. Its special value lies in the exquisite tints of the
different hues. These marvellously varied stones were formerly quarried
from the Kuen-Kask Valley, where jade or yu-stone runs in
different-coloured veins through the rocks. It is said that jade in the
form of spleen stone first came to Europe from America. It is found
extensively in Mexico, and also in Burma, but the chief interest centres
in the grotesque and cleverly carved Chinese curios. The beauty and
value of these pieces lies not so much in their forms as in their
marvellous tints and the clever way in which the Chinese workmen, in
fashioning grotesque forms, have cut away practically all the colour
of certain intruding shades, leaving the figures in some brilliant hue
of green, red, or pink, standing out upon a base of some other shade.
The curiously smoked mutton-fat colour is one of the rarest, but to the
amateur the more transparent and brilliant tints possess the greatest
beauty.

[Illustration: FIG. 56.--TEMPLE GUARDIAN, CARVED FROM THE GNARLED ROOT
OF A TREE.

(_In the Author's collection._)]

True jade, or nephrite, is a native silicate of calcium and magnesium,
and does not exhibit either crystalline form or distinct cleavage. In
addition to the "mutton-fat" shade spoken so highly of there are lovely
shades in green, emerald, moss, tea and sea green, violet and yellow,
and white and camphor; but the rarest of all combinations is violet,
mutton-fat, and emerald green.

Wood Carvings.

Many of the more decorative household ornaments are made of wood. To cut
down a tree or to whittle a stick has been the favourite occupation of
men of all ages, and the possession of a pocket-knife the ambition of
the schoolboy from time immemorial. Something to cut keeps him out of
mischief and calls forth any ingenuity he may have. Some of the most
wonderful curios have been cut by hand, fashioned with skill. Some are
remarkably realistic in their forms, faithful copies of living
originals, or of objects of still greater antiquity with which the wood
carver has been familiar. Carvers have sometimes allowed themselves to
run wild in their imaginations as they have cut and shaped a block of
wood, giving it the most fantastic form, picturing myths a