Many Kinds Of Jade Available For ‘Carvers’

Jade is a stone with a resinous or oily appearance when it is polished. There are two types of Oriental jade. Nephrite is found on mainland China and jadeite comes from Burma. They vary somewhat in their chemical structure. Under glass, nephrite may reveal a slight fibrous structure, while jadeite looks like a mass of interlocking granular components.

Jade in either form is hard and tough. A steel knife can not scratch it. In fact, one test of jade is to press a blade tip hard against the base of the stone and continue pressing while pulling about 1/4 inch. Either a white or black mark will appear. If the mark is white, the knife has scratched the stone and it is not jade. If it is black, the stone has scratched the steel knife. The black mark does not prove the piece is jade (some other stones will also produce a black mark) but a white mark proves it is not jade.

Jade is so tough that carved pieces will last hundreds of years. The term “carved” is not quite accurate, since actually the stone is cut, chipped, chiseled or ground into desired sizes and shapes.

Numerous “types” of jade have been named. “tomb jade” refers to pieces that came from ancient tombs. There are some of these pieces available; there are also many pieces called this that are much newer. They aren’t very pretty pieces, compared to modern gem-quality work. The color has often changed through centuries underground and become grayish white, dull, or will show some calcification.

“Chicken-bone jade” is a grayish white color; “mutton-fat jade” is a high quality white jade that looks like congealed mutton fat. “Imperial jade” refers to pieces that once theoretically belonged to the Chinese royal family.

There are many jade substitutes, also. For instance, “Soochow jade” is not jade at all, but the softer serpentine or sandstone. One of the most common imitations is dyed calcite, which is simply colored marble, chalk or limestone.

Jade comes in many colors. The green shades vary, from spinach or moss colored to the pale shades of celadon.That called “Imperial jade” is a lustrous apple-green color. The mutton fat, as mentioned, is white; it may be streaked with gray or brown. Jade may also be found in shades of tangerine, pink and lavender.

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Handy Appliances Available To Homemakers

When considering kitchen appliances, some basic pieces come to mind - the toaster, mixer, and blender are probably high on the list. And there is certainly nothing unusual about the waffle iron, coffee maker and pressure cooker. But manufacturers have also come up with a variety of novelty appliances through the years. Most have their brief moment of sales - everyone either gives or receives at least one during this limited period - and then most fade into oblivion again. They make an entertaining collection.

One such piece was the Angelus-Campfire Bar-B-Q Marshmallow Toaster. It was made in the 1920s by the Campfire Company of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was a little 3-inch square metal piece with a pierced top and loop wire legs. Included with the toaster were some flat wire forks to be used for roasting marshmallows.

Hamilton Beach made a Universal Home Motor in 1917. It could be used to run everything from a treadle sewing machine to an ice cream freezer, and was adaptable to both AC and DC current. It sold for $18.50, and according to its advertisement, could power that sewing machine for hours at a cost of only one cent per hour.

The Sunbeam Automatic Egg Cooker was a featured item in the 1940s. It cooked up to six eggs to the level of hardness desired; and also poached one to three eggs, “to perfection,” each time, the advertising claimed. For extra convenience in cooking, the lid of the cooker could be used as a measuring cup.

Hundreds more of these gadgets, some electric and some not, are just waiting for a collector with plenty of room in his kitchen to discover.

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The ‘Stupid Little Rhyme’
Written For Something To Do

Sarah Catherine Martin, an early sweetheart of William IV of England, was a vivacious and extremely talkative young woman, history tells us. This latter characteristic created a place for her in the lives of almost everyone since 1805.

The story is told that when she was 36, in 1804, she was visiting her future brother-in-law in Devon, England. Her constant chattering finally got on the nerves of her host, who was trying to write a letter. He told her to go write something herself - “one of your stupid little rhymes,” he reportedly said.

Miss Martin did as she was told and the result was not only published the following year, 1805, but has been published by someone every year since.

Her offering was instantaneously popular, selling over 10,000 copies in the first months, and pirated reprints followed just as fast.

Her “stupid little rhyme” begins:

Old Mother Hubbard
Went to the cupboard,
To fetch her poor dog a bone;
but when she came there
The cupboard was bare
And so the poor dog had none.

Miss Martin probably drew from a stock nursery-tale character in creating this poem, but it seems fairly certain that she composed the numerous verses that comprise the activities of Old Mother Hubbard and her dog much as they are still printed today.

This original version consisted of 114 stanzas, and ended with:

The dame made a curtsy,
The dog made a bow;
The dame said, Your servant,
The dog said, Bow-wow.

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