THE GEMS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 825 



The series of spinels is well chosen and varicolored : it consists of a 

 long two-carat stone of smoky-blue color ; an oblong almandine-colored 

 stone of three carats, an inky stone of one and a half carat, a half- 

 carat ruby spinel of fair color, a pretty rubicelle of three quarters of a 

 carat, and a suite of crystals of the ruby-colored spinel from Ceylon 

 and Burmah. We have also a cut Alexandrite (so called after the 

 Czar Alexander I), from the original Russian locality. This is of 

 fair color, but the wonderful Ceylonese gems of recent years have 

 really given to this phenomenal variety of chrysoberyl, which changes 

 from green to red under artificial light, its present high rank among 

 gems. There is a six-carat typical chrysoberyl, finely cut (the chryso- 

 lite of the jeweler), truly, as the name indicates, golden beryl, and a 

 dark-green one of that shade repeatedly sold as Alexandrite, though it 

 does not change color by artificial light. A set of seven rough frag- 

 ments from Brazil is instructive by comparison. 



Among the beryls we have a flawed emerald of ten carats, that 

 well illustrates the typical color, as does a pear-shaped drop of about 

 the same weight and quality. There is also a crystal that has been in 

 the institution for many years, labeled from New Mexico. It is evi- 

 dently not from that locality, for no other such occurrence is on 

 record, and we must suspect that the label is a misnomer, since the 

 crystal has unmistakable signs of Muso (New Granada) origin. An 

 emerald crystal two inches long, one of a series of minerals brought 

 by Professor J. D. Dana from Peru when with the Wilkes Explor- 

 ing Expedition, is historically interesting. It was purchased by him 

 in the streets of Callao. In the same series are two good cut beryls, 

 one six carats in weight, of a light-green color, another one-carat 

 light-blue one from Royalston, Massachusetts, and perhaps the finest 

 specimen ever found, at the Portland (Connecticut) quarries, fifteen 

 carats in weight, and of such a rich, deep sea-blue color as almost to 

 rival in splendor the matchless three-carat Brazilian blue-stone that is 

 in the same case. 



A fine blue crystal from Moume Mountain, Ireland, is interesting 

 for its locality and deep color. Stonehara, Maine, has contributed a 

 two-carat white cut stone and a similar fragment ; while Siberia is 

 represented only by a common white stone of about six carats' weight. 



Next comes a series of the emerald-yellow and yellowish-green va- 

 rieties of spodumene (variety Hiddenite), embracing lithia emerald in 

 the rough, and three cut stones of the same, weighing from a quarter to 

 three-quarters of a carat, and varying in color from green to yellowish- 

 green, from Stony Point, North Carolina ; also a quarter-carat light- 

 yellow and a one-carat golden-yellow spodumene of the variety resem- 

 bling chrysoberyl, described by Pisani, of Paris, in " Comptes Rendus " 

 for 1877, from Brazil. The white cut phenakitc of three carats' weight, 

 from Russia, is of rare occurrence, but has recently been found at two 

 localities in Colorado. 



