160 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



collectors or museums. This collection is now installed in the American 

 Museum of Natural History, a crowning glory to the many magnificent 

 assemblages of other things in the Museum. 



The collection is especially remarkable for the many unique things it 

 contains, among which are the most perfect large sapphire known, a Baby- 

 lonian ax-head of banded agate, four thousand years old, and a wonderful 

 series of sapphires, blue, pink, salmon and brown. There is also a magni- 

 ficent series of beryls; a large series of tourmalines; an immense section of 

 jade — an entire boulder but so thin that it measures not more than one 

 eighth of an inch through. The great hyacinth with the portrait of Christ 

 engraved on it, the gift of a Vatican cardinal to a friend, is in this 

 collection. 



The two collections as eventually completed consist of 2176 specimens 

 of gem-stones, objects of precious-stone, and 2442 pearls. Taken in its 

 entirety the present collection is the most extensive and carefully selected 

 display of rough and cut stones in existence. The specimens of ancient 

 Babylonian minerals represented by engraved cylinders constitute in them- 

 selves a quite unique possession, and the same may be said of the collection 

 of opals and of the collection of kunzite specimens. Magnificent cut speci- 

 mens of morganite must also be noted, as well as a mass of quite transparent 

 aquamarine, the heart of the great crystal found at Marambaya, Brazil, a 

 piece weighing fourteen pounds. This mass of aquamarine is the largest 

 piece of gem beryl known. There are also magnificent crystals of rubellite 

 found during the past year at Pala, San Diego County, California. 



A gigantic geode thirty-five feet in height and twelve feet in width, lined 

 with magnificent amethyst, was discovered in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, in 1899. 

 This was carefully broken apart and the five largest masses measuring several feet 

 and covered with the finest crystals, of one to two and one half inches across, many 

 of them perfect gems, are in this collection. 



The diamond crystals of American origin are quite unique, notably, a diamond 

 crystal weighing 15^f carats, found in gravel and clay of the Kettle Moraine, near 

 Eagle, Waukesha Co., Wisconsin; another of 3yf carats, a perfect octahedron, from 

 Kettle Moraine, two and one half miles southwest of Oregon, Dane Co., Wisconsin; 

 two diamonds, one of 4 J carats from Lee Co., Alabama, and the other of 4^J, from 

 Shelby Co., Alabama; diamonds found in a rock from Kimberley, South Africa and 

 from the Vaal River, South Africa, as well as a number of pink, brownish, yellow and 

 white diamonds, and some of the interesting round sort of the greatest hardness and 

 •density. The diamond collection comprises eight cut stones, ten ring-gems and six 

 in the rock. 



The sapphire collection numbers 166 specimens, many of them magnificent 

 •examples, such as a great blue gem from Ceylon of 158f| carats; a violet stone of 

 •33 carats from Siam; a superb yellow sapphire of 100 carats from Ceylon; one of 

 a golden yellow weighing 73i carats, and a yellow and blue one of 154 carats, also 

 from Ceylon. There is also an engraved Indian sapphire of 14rg^ carats. In addi- 

 tion to these we have an endless collection of purple, greenish yellow, pink and salmon- 

 colored sapphires. 



