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PRECIOUS STONES.

Pearls or diamonds enhance the colour of the paler sorts of sapphire, spinel, and tourmaline, but afford too striking a contrast with very richly and deeply tinted stones. A fine indicolite, step or cabochon cut, accords well with pearls or moonstones arranged as a bordering or in some conventional form; the gold work may well receive an enrichment in the form of grey or olive green enamel. In the case of the sapphire, the twin beams of diversely-coloured light which this stone transmits—the one azure blue, the other greenish straw—contribute to produce the peculiarly rich quality of its velvety softness. There is a glittering coldness in all the imitations of the sapphire—the timbre of their colour, to borrow a word from music, is harsh and unsatisfactory. So a recent imitation, a kind of lime-spinel made artificially, exhibits apparently the right colour, but it is flat and uninteresting. To my eye, the difference between a true sapphire and a false one is the analogue of the difference between a piece of leafage in wrought iron, and the same piece in cast iron. As to the arrangement of the sapphire in jewellery, so much depends upon its depth of colour and its precise hue, that a general rule would be fallacious. Unless it be pale, when certain green tourmalines go well with it, the sapphire may be most safely associated with pearls, diamonds, moonstones, or white topazes, the cutting and size of the stones being carefully studied.

Violet and Purple Stones.—The amethyst, the oriental amethyst, and the almandine garnet cannot, as a general rule, be safely associated with stones having strongly marked contrasting hues. The paler sorts of peridot may, however, be combined with deep-coloured amethysts or almandines, provided the latter be small in comparison. The use of opaque fawn-coloured, olive green, and brown enamel with violet and purple stones sometimes yields happy effects.

In devising arrangements of coloured stones a mere water-colour sketch will not suffice. It is always desirable to study with the aid of the actual materials themselves—stones, gold, silver,