THE MYSTIC CRYSTAL SPHERE 



By L. P. Gratacap 



A MOST refined perception, developed perhaps often along narrow 

 and technical lines distinguishes the connoisseur who is besides pre- 

 eminently a collector. The recognition of the bold or delicate 

 treatment of intaglio or relievo in onyx cutting, whether of antique or of 

 the equally prized modern workmanship (Pistrucci, Girometti, Natter, 

 Pichler) is acquired only by long observation and comparison, unless 

 indeed the enviable power of discernment is bestowed by nature. Among 

 gem stones, quality, color, limpidity, are probably sooner learned in their 

 best development, though here again it is surprising how almost intuitional 

 seems the skill of the gem expert in separating cut stones according to their 

 species and their values in a miscellaneous group. The guiding features 

 of natural form and association are absent, nevertheless the acute judge 

 separates the different minerals, deceptively enhanced in their beauty by 

 their cut, with amazing certainty. Very serious blunders occur, but they 

 are really infrequent with those accustomed through a long experience to 

 handle gems, and to detect the contrasted phases in the same mineral. 



Quartz is a protean mineral assuming in nature a remarkable number of 

 aspects but never attaining except in its hydrated and softer condition as 

 opal, significant gem value, unless indeed the more beautiful amethysts 

 are given this coveted rank. And yet quartz of the purest quality attains 

 a very unusual value, when it justifies the ancient identification of its quali- 

 ties with ice and when this perfection of texture and stainless purity are 

 brought by the cutter to their highest development to the eye, as in the 

 "crystal sphere." 



Of course the cameo contrived from the hard and many colored onyx 

 possesses little commercial value apart from the talent or genius of the 

 artist who shapes his exquisite images. But the quartz that meets the 

 exacting requirements of the connoisseur in the formation of the crystal 

 sphere which he so jealously prizes, must be flawless, and this immaculate 

 state in masses large enough to yield the larger quartz balls is not so com- 

 monly encountered. In 1886 Tiffany and Company received a mass of rock 

 crystal weighing fifty-one pounds, part of an original crystal which Dr. G. F. 

 Kunz estimated might have weighed three hundred pounds, from which an 

 almost perfect ball four and one-half to five inches in diameter could have 

 been cut. This extraordinary fragment came from Ash County, North 

 Carolina, and in its vicinity occurred two ciystals, one of which weighed 

 two hundred and eighty-five pounds. The island of Madagascar furnishes 

 quartz in rolled masses, sometimes weighing a hundred or more pounds, and 

 these reappear in China or Japan in those wonderful spheres which fascinate 

 not only the oriental collector but also his western competitor, and which 

 by a crude perversion of their beauty, assist the impostor to read fortunes 

 and predict the future. 



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