Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/846

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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

The tourmalines include a dark-red gem (rubellite) of six carats' weight, and good color; two light-red ones of one half carat each, and a line dark-blue one (indicolite) of three eighths carat; four long bottle-green (called Brazilian emeralds) of two carats each; a half-carat white achroite; two olive-green stones of two carats each; and two sections of green crystals that have red centers. This difference of color between the outer and inner crystals is peculiar to tourmalines, as many as three colors being found in one crystal. All these are from Brazil. The well-known domestic localities are represented by an oblong, table-cut, light-green stone from Paris, Oxford County, Maine, that once held a conspicuous place in the collection of Dr. Joseph Leidy, which, unfortunately, had to be scattered. From Auburn, Maine, a locality quite recently discovered, we have a one-carat blue indicolite, two lavender-colored stones of one carat each, a light emerald-green stone of three quarters of a carat, and as handsome as an emerald by artificial light, and also a suite of several dozen loose crystals of various colors. The neighboring two-carat yellow and three-carat yellowish-brown cut stones are from Ceylon. The fine two-inch grass-green crystal and one-inch bluish-green crystal are also part of the treasure brought home by Professor Dana from the Wilkes Expedition of 1838-'42.

A six-carat blue and two-carat sherry-colored topaz from Siberia are exceedingly brilliant, but the domestic reputation is well sustained by the cinnamon-tinted fifteen-carat cut stone from Pike's Peak, Colorado, which is not surpassed in beauty by the brilliant white four-carat (Minas Novas) from Minas-Geraes, in Brazil. A series of crystals that have been "heated," follows, varying in color from dark pink fading into white according to the degree of calorification.

Among the garnets are ten flat, brilliant cut stones, four carbuncles, and six rose-colored, from Bohemia; six Tyrolese red garnets, two essonites (usually sold as hyacinths by the jewelers), four carats and a quarter carat from Ceylon, and a series, cut and uncut, from New Mexico, which furnishes the finest garnets in the world in point of color. In addition to these we notice a two-carat demantoid (green garnet or Uralian emerald) from Bobrowska River, Syssersk, in the Urals, and a brownish-green one-carat stone from the same locality.

From New Mexico we have a fine yellowish-green peridot or olivine, called chrysolite by the mineralogist, but not by the jeweler, and known as "Job's Tears" locally (from their pitted, tear-like appearance), while the Orient is represented by a beautiful olive-green cut stone.

From the zircons or jargoons we may single out for remark a number of small cut stones, yellowish-brown, pink, bluish-green, and white, the latter color being often produced by heating. Stones of this kind were at one time used for incrusting watches, which were