DISCOVERY 



;:67 



be expected, this gruesome search led to very few, if 

 any, practical results,' but it made public the not 

 ! vmimportant fact of an Imperial grave being found 



empty, namely, that of Alexander I. 

 ; The coffin was certainly there, just as it was brought 



I in some time in December 1825, carefully sealed up. 

 But when the seals were broken, it was discovered that 

 no body had ever lain there, whilst the heavy weight 

 of the coffin was explained by a few lumps of lead found 

 in it. This discovery destroyed the previous theories 

 that either a dummy lay in the coffin when it was 

 brought from Taganrog to St. Petersburg, and there 

 given the usual funeral with all the pomp and honour 

 due to an Emperor, or else that the coffin did 

 contain a real body, though not that of the Sovereign, 

 who most probably had not died at Taganrog. The 

 magnificent white marble sarcophagus, so splendid in 

 its simple severity, with a single letter " A " in gold 

 letters on the top and a small elaborately car\ed 

 imperial crown, covered the space of 6 ft. and dis- 

 closed nothing but an empty coffin with the original 

 Taganrog seals. 



This discovery, naturally, can in no way prove the 

 identity of the person of Alexander I with the strange 

 hermit " Fedor Kusmitch." Yet it does away with 

 the supposition that Alexander's death really took 

 place on that foggy day in November 1825 at Tagan- 

 rog. And, perhaps, this accidental discovery of an 

 empty tomb within SS. Peter and Paul's walls will 

 give to a future historian of Russia some ground to 

 stand on when he investigates the fate of one of the 

 most m5'sterious royal characters of the nineteenth 

 ccnturv. 



Modem Industries — IV 



Gem-gathering in Ceylon 



By T. Bowyer-Bower, M.Inst.C.E. 

 Objects of the Industry 



Travellers to the Far East have no doubt felt interested 

 in the wonderful display of gems, precious and semi- 

 precious, at Colombo, Ceylon, but probably few have 

 given any thought to the question where these stones 



I Soon after this search had taken place, a rumour waj 

 spread among the lower population of Petrograd to the effect 

 that " the Soviet authorities had taken out the body of Peter 

 the Great and were on the point of selling it to some American 

 millionaire," but this rumour was unfounded, and the bod\ 

 of the great Emperor is left to lie in peace in his accustomed 

 place. 



have come from or how they were obtained. The 

 average traveller is satisfied if he comes to the conclusion 

 that the majority of stones offered by the dealers have 

 their origin in Birmingham or other places where glass 

 is cheap. As a matter of fact, gems guaranteed by a 

 reputable dealer in Colombo can be relied upon as 

 genuine. For many years the main source of certain 

 precious stones and semi-precious stones that are sold 

 in the European market has been in Ceylon or Burma. 

 There is a very large business done every year, especially 

 with India, in semi-precious stones. Before the war 

 the writer had occasion to investigate the gem 

 industry. The sales of five of the principal dealers 

 showed just on £60,000 profit on their sales alone. 

 As there are hundreds of small dealers and smugglers 

 who rely upon gem-selling as a livelihood, it can be 

 imagined that the business is by no means a small one. 

 The main supply in Ceylon comes from the Ratnapura 

 district of the island, known as the Low Country. The 

 gems are secured by the hand-washing of alluvial de- 

 posits, and also in the beds of streams. A gemmer, 

 on finding stones, sells to an agent on the spot. Agents 

 travel the country round, hunting up any new find, 

 and great competition arises as to who the happ}' 

 purchaser will be. The agent again sells to the dealer 

 and sometimes directly to a foreign ptirchaser. The 

 dealers also sell, and resell, among themselves. I 

 know of a particularly fine amethyst that at one time 

 or another belonged to every dealer of importance on 

 the island. The last purchaser, despairing of ever 

 selling it at anything like the price he paid for it, had 

 it cut, and to his astonishment he was then able to 

 boast of a very fine profit by selling it to a private 

 purchaser. 



It is exceedingly difficult, even to the expert, to 

 give a definite opinion as to how a gem in the rough 

 will cut ; and even the gem-cutter may not always cut 

 the gem so as to give the greatest effect of light and 

 colour. A gem of fine quality may be entirely spoiled 

 by being wrongly cut ; in the same way one of poor 

 quality may be greatly enhanced in value by good 

 cutting. Fig. i shows the gem-cutters in the fore- 

 ground, and at the back the shadowy figure of the 

 man at the polishing disk. The art in cutting is perhaps 

 more noticeable in the blue zircon, which, to be 

 effective, must be of uniform colour when looked 

 through from every angle of vision. The zircon is 

 one of the least appreciated and yet one of the most 

 beautiful gems, in my opinion. It ranks at the head 

 of second-grade gems, and has the flash and lights of 

 a diamond, and at the same time can be obtained in 

 many beautiful colours and shades. 



There is no hard-and-fast method m Ceylon of 

 recovering gems from the earth's surface, such as the 

 custom of recovering rubies in Burma, or diamonds in 



