372 ANNUAL REPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1912. 



eigners. Since the French occupation of the island, the prospectors 

 have taken their revenge. The map of the "Service des Mines," 

 on which is recorded the sites for permits for research, resembles a 

 swarm of ants. 



Among the treasures that this remarkable activity" has drawn from 

 the earth, precious stones, along with gold, must be placed as the 

 principal object of exploitation. The conjectures of ancient voy- 

 agers have been realized, but I should say that the mineral deposits 

 now worked are not at all those which they believed they had dis- 

 covered. They knew only of those near the mouths of the rivers of 

 the eastern coast and in the neighborhood of Fort Dauphin, there 

 where modern research has so far brought to light only some quartz 

 and poor garnets, unfit for any economic use.* The real deposits are 

 found elsewhere. 



Official statistics show that in 1911 there were exported from Mada- 

 gascar 470 kilograms of stones ready to be cut; it is a good omen for 

 the future of so new an industry. I was at its birth. ^ I have followed 

 its rapid strides while there has been unearthed material of a scien- 

 tific interest of the first order.^ Thus in the course of a recent mis- 

 sion, to which I was attached, I undertook, among other subjects, to 

 study on the spot all the mineral occurrences that might yield the 

 least gem. I now propose to outline what I saw. 



1 It is shown by the following references that it was these minerals that those early explorers had seen: 

 In 1666 Frangois Martin (the founder of Pondich^ry) says that the passengers of the Vierge du Bon Port 

 brought a quantity of topazes, amethysts, and other colored stones that they had foTind at Fort Dauphin. 

 " That has been a fancy of the French who were in the island, but they have not been appreciated in France 

 because they were found too fragile." (Archives nationales, MS.) 



In 1668, De Faye, director of commerce of the East India Co., wrote "that the company has been very 

 much undeceived on the subject of some precious stones of which wonderful things had been promised him 

 and for which in India they had not given a sou per thousand [some topazes and amethysts from the Itapere 

 River (Fort Dauphin)]. (Arch. Min. Colonies, Manuscripts.) 



This last story is confirmed by De la Haj-e (op. cit., 91). "Director Caron, arriving at Surate, offered 

 some to the governor of the city , who refused them, smiling at the gift, which, however, was nine of the most 

 beautiful stones that had yet been seen and the smallest as large as a quail's egg, and all cut in various 

 shapes. They were shown to several jewelers, who were pressed to state their value, and none estimated 

 higher than 9 rupeas for the most beautiful and 27 for all the others." 



» The first si)ecimens received at the museum were a beautiful crystal of rubellite, some small sapphires 

 and zircons, given in 1891 by A. Grandidier. (Jannettaz. Bull. Soc. frang. mtn6r., vol. 14, 1891, p. 66.) 

 The first specimens reported in France with the precise indications of their localities were given to me by 

 E. Gautier; I described them in 1899 (Bull. Museum, p. 318); a little later Mr. Villiaume sent me some tour, 

 malines found by him to the west of Mount Bity. 



I believe that I was the first to have these precious stones of Madagascar cut in a systematic fashion, fol- 

 lowing the exposition made at the museum at the time of the expedition; there were some chrysoberyls, 

 some garnets, some corundnms, and topazes, etc., from the alluvia of Belambo near Mevatanana and 

 brought back by M. Suberbie. I afterwards exhibited in the Gallery of Mineralogy a fine series of yellow 

 and brown tourmalines that I had had cut with the aid of patterns from the region of Tsilaisina, that 

 Mr. Gamier-Mouton had sent me, who was then chief of the Province of Betafo. 



' I have described these materials in numerous notes and memoirs, particularly in my Mindralogie de la 

 France et de ses Colonies, vols. 1-4, 1893-1900, in the article Mindralogio, in Madagascar au XX siecle, 1902, 

 pp. 65-107, then in theComptes Rendus del' Ac. des Sciences and in the Bulletin dela SocidtiS frangaise de 

 Mindralogie from 1908 to 1912. See also the notes of M. Mouneyres and of M. Dabren (sho^\ang some results 

 of the mission Villierme) in the Bulletin de 1' Acaddmie malgache, vol. 4, 1905, and in the Bulletin 6cono- 

 mique de Madagascar, 1906, besides those of MM.Dupare, AVunder and Sabot in the Bulletin delaSoci6t6 

 fran^aise de Mindralogie, 1910-1911, in the Archives and the Memoires de la Soci6t6 des Sciences physiques 

 et naturelles de Geneve, 1910. 



