they are passed again under a careful lapidary's hands. The improvement thus effected is marvellous. The value of the pearl, whether its "orient" be luminous with prismatic hues, or whether it be a warm soft white merely, is too well known to be more than named in this connection. But we may be permitted to say one word in deprecation of the extravagant expenditure of time, of ingenuity, and of costly materials, which the attempt to convert large irregular pearls into structures resembling figures has so often caused. The result is nearly always most unhappy.
Red Stones.—The ruby may fitly be considered before other coloured stones. It, with the sapphire, and all the transparent varieties of corundum, ranks next to the diamond in hardness. It is, moreover, a stone of great beauty. Probably the experts in jewels are right in assigning the highest value to those rubies which possess a "pigeon's blood" colour—this is the orthodox hue. But the paler colours, and those which verge upon pink and crimson, and even violet, are capable of being so treated by means of association with white and black enamel or with dark stones, like olive-green tourmalines, as to lend themselves to the production of very beautiful decorative effects. The great mistake commonly made in the treatment of the paler rubies lies in the attempt to treat them in the same way as the deeper coloured stones.
It is difficult to describe the peculiar colour quality of the ruby in words. In fact, our nomenclature of colours is neither ample nor accurate. Our appreciation of delicate differences between colours is growing, but the language by which we endeavour to describe the hues which we have learned to appreciate is either stationary, or else receives additions from time to time of unsatisfactory words, derived from the caprices of French fashions. The time has really arrived when a standard series of hues of all sorts should be constructed and appropriately named; but, in the case of the ruby, the question of pleochroism comes in, and renders
