ABSTRACT
J a d e , perhaps the most satisfying material substance ever prized by man, appears, in its worked condition, to be co extensive with the history and the life of the Chinese people. Dedicated millenniums before the Christian era, as the purest and most divine of natural treasures, to be the vehicle of communication with the unseen powers of the universe, it was adopted too as the emblem of human authority and the prophylactic against disharmony.
