This page has been validated.
RED STONES.
39

the difficulty of describing the colour quality of this stone greater. There is also some prismatic "fire" in the stone, and much internal reflection of light, while its surface lustre lies between resinous and vitreous. These four properties give to the red of the ruby a peculiar richness, which the two other species of precious stones—the spinel and the garnet—which come nearest to it in colour, do not equally possess. The two reds which make up the colour transmitted by the ruby do not differ much, but yet they help to impart, to a properly cut stone, a delicate variation of hue which is not present in any other red stone, nor in any imitative substance. The dichroiscope, consequently, never fails to discriminate between a ruby on the one hand and a spinel or a garnet on the other. The two latter stones are, of course, softer than the ruby, and the former is always lighter, that is, of less specific gravity. For the ruby and the whole of the corundum family of stones have the specific gravity of 4, and a hardness which is nearly, and in some cases quite, 9 on the mineralogical scale.

One of the happiest uses of the ruby is in the form of an inlay, in certain gold vessels of Indian origin. The external surface of these vessels is covered with a system of interlacing ridges and furrows. The rubies, generally small, oval, and cut en cabochon, are set along the furrows. Thus they are much protected from the chance of dislodgment, while the effect they produce, of a rich deep crimson groundwork over which a gold netting has been thrown, is in perfect harmony with the materials and their workmanship. For, naturally, the metal gold, when pure, or nearly pure, throws a ruddy tint when light is reflected from surface to surface; witness the interior of gilt vessels. The same thing occurs in the golden furrows of which we have spoken, where the rubies seem to rest in a golden sheen, of a hue in which the yellow, and orange, and red elements, now one and now another, appear to prevail. The gold should not be burnished where much contrast between the metallic surfaces and the rubies is desired, but