170 THE AMERICAN MUSEUM JOURNAL 



limited for want of space to accommodate the abundant overflow now 

 hidden in storage. 



The visitor leaning over that variegated garden of the sapphires learns 

 with interest the remarkable range of colors in this gem : the vivid electric 

 blues, paler cerulean hues, the deep pansy tones, the pinks, translucent 

 and feeble, and the almost opaque turgid pigeon-blood stones, and green, 

 golden yellow, salmon, gentian, to colorless water stones. The opposite 

 case reveals the superb play of color in beryl from the peerless emerald, 

 through haunting changes of blue and green in the aquamarines, to the 

 saffron yellow of the golden beryl, while near it is the amazing show of 

 tourmaline, surprising in its vagaries of sharply lined and interblended 

 tints, with its contrasted triple points of emphasis in green, red and blue. 

 The topaz, less arrestingly, exhibits its departures from convention in the 

 burnt half-caramel tone of the Brazilian stone, to gentians (mostly artificially 

 produced), yellows, and the limpid masses. 



Case follows case, holding the precious and semiprecious stones, approxi- 

 mately in the order of their commercial merit, an order not invariably sus- 

 tained by taste, and yet practically valid. The chrysoberyls (alexandrite) 

 with their tantalizing caprices of color, the rather insipid spinel; the rich 

 moorish browns of the zircon, among which note the raspberry glints of the 

 hyacinth, the effective bottle green of peridot, and the coarser — yet at 

 times refined to the point of a deliberate superiority almost over ruby — 

 garnet with its audacious greens and honey -yellow spessartites. 



Here is a supremely showy case of the chameleon amongst gems, the 

 tortuous and vagrant opal, and here a splendid group of amethysts — the 

 bishop's stone — with a regal group of crystals from Delaware County, 

 Pennsylvania, in the center of it. A case of mingled degrees and orders, in 

 the hierarchy of gems, adjoins it, where, with recognized families as the 

 moonstone (adularia), are joined a host of lesser aspirants to fashionable 

 attention, such as titanite and euclase, a motley throng not unlike the 

 obsequious courtiers before the gates of Timon of Athens, seeking honors 

 to which they have no claim. 



But to some eyes, more beautiful almost than anything else are these 

 marvelous lilac, gentian, or pale carnation slabs of kunzite (spodumene), 

 a mineral wonder, found buried far below all human contact in the moun- 

 tains of southern California, and now fascinating the world of ostentation 

 with its subtle radiance. 



Here too is amber and turquoise and gold, lovely in themselves but 

 lovelier in combination, and then, with a fine challenge to the prerogatives 

 of the sister museum, are carved, cut and polished vessels and designs in 

 quartz, chalcedony, agate, jade and jadeite. 



It must always stand true that this treasure-house of beauty is in itself 

 a wonderful monument to the man who thus generously enriched the Ameri- 

 can Museum. 



