THE CURIOSITIES OF GEMMOLOGY 
A REVIEW OF A RECENT BOOK BY GEORGE FREDERIC KUNZ ON SUPERSTI- 
TIONS AND MEANINGS ATTACHED TO PRECIOUS STONES 
L. P. Gratacap 
These metaphysics of magicians, 
And necromantic books are heavenly. 
Lines, circles, scenes, letters, and characters: 
O what a world of profit and delight 
Of power, honour, and omnipotence, 
Is promised to the studious artizan. 
Tragical History of Doctor Faustus. 
HE pages of a recent book! by Dr. 
in George Frederick Kunz, hono- 
rary curator of gems at the 
American Museum, will be turned over 
by the fascinated reader with, we ima- 
gine, the most interesting commixture of 
feelings, an interfusion of wonder, amuse- 
ment and_half-credulous assent, of 
admiration and curiosity. He will feel 
admiration at the art and discernment, 
the resources and adequacy of the 
author, and curiosity as to the origin 
or real derivation of such strange pre- 
dispositions, hallucinations and_ ultra- 
romantic traditions and fancies, regard- 
ing these “mute insensate things.” 
Certainly the traditions and fancies are 
not unfamiliar. In any desultory read- 
ing they have been encountered by every- 
one — not forgetting indeed the Wilkie 
Collins story of boyhood, The Moon 
Stone, but here through almost four 
hundred pages of anecdote, quotation, 
description and allusion, reénforced by 
beautiful figures and plates, the effect 
is bewildering. Why these attributes of 
miraculous power? Why the association 
of precious stones with religious beliefs, 
why the mystic influences credited to 
birthstones, the extra-terrestrial stations 
assigned to gems in the zodiac, and their 
1THE Curious Lore or Precious STONEs. 
By George Frederick Kunz. Philadelphia and 
London: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1913. 
ascription to the planets — with the more 
contemporaneous touch of occultism 
when we read of the prophetic powers of 
crystal balls, their magical landscapes 
and portents? Such questions are surely 
not answered in Dr. Kunz’s work, and 
indeed a sowp¢on of dissatisfaction arises 
when we think that we discover in the 
learned writer, a poetic acquiescence in 
these ascriptions, as perhaps becomes 
the antiquarian, the virtuoso, the con- 
noisseur, and above all the philosophic 
historian. 
But if reasons are not fully discussed, 
albeit many passages assume some seri- 
ousness in that respect, the display of 
facts, the careful analysis of reports, 
and the evidence of large research, the 
clearness and charm of narration, with 
the remarkable elegance of illustration, 
are all there. 
The frontispiece of the book is a su- 
perbly colored plate of cut and polished 
gem-stones, many from the Morgan- 
Tiffany collection in the Museum. This 
is followed by three other fine examples 
of color reproduction: Cardinal Farley’s 
ring, gems from the Morgan-Tiffany 
collection, and the dazzling cross, at- 
tached as pendant to the crown of 
the Gothic King Reccesvinthus. The 
remaining illustrations evince the quali- 
ties of the unusual, the rococo, the 
quaint, the delicate and the antique, as 
befits a book of a semiliterary and 
scientific scope; the touch of the virtuoso 
is plain and the guidance of expert taste 
as well. The chapters’ as they succeed — 
each other are as follows: Superstitions 
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