Gems and SapiMres. 147 



industry is protected by no patent, nor is it surrounded by 

 any difficulties that I am aware of. The figures relating to 

 quantities have been collected from the gentlemen above 

 named, but whatever measm-e of success or disappointment 

 may be the result, it cannot fail to be highly interesting to 

 this Society to see such a hopeless looking tree turned to so 

 many useful products, through the aid of science, while to 

 the mind bent on inquiry after the good and the useful, 

 these remarks may convey a lesson never to despair, nor pass 

 over what appears trifling and valueless at first sight. 



Art. III. — Gems and Sapphires. By the Rev. John 3. 

 Bleasdale, D.D. 



[Read 12th March, 1866.] 



Mr, President and Gentlemen, — I trust I shall be 

 forgiven on this occasion, as I have been on many preceding, 

 for taking up a few minutes of the public time without 

 having given previous notice. It is not always in my power 

 to give notice of any little matter I may have to exhibit ; 

 and I prefer rather not to give notice than do so, and then 

 disappoint the meeting. On the present occasion it was 

 utterly out of my power to do so. The matter which I 

 wish to bring before you to-night will not detain you many 

 minutes ; and that which forms the substance of it will, I 

 trust, interest some and please all. 



The very harmless and, to myself, pleasing recreation of 

 collecting and collating the gem stones of our favoured 

 country, has put, and will no doubt, from time to time, 

 continue to put, in my way objects not unworthy of being 

 recorded among the labours of this Society. 



To-night I have in my power to bring under your notice 

 a magnificent specimen of the green Sapphire (the Oriental 

 Emerald), one of the very rarest of all gem minerals — so 

 exceedingly rare, that Harry Emanuel, in his work just 

 published, 1865, says of it : "The green variety (of Sapphire), 

 or the Oriental Emerald, is the rarest of all gems, and is 

 scarcely ever seen. In the whole course of my experience, 

 I have only met with one specimen." Harry Emanuel is, of 

 all living men, about the most likely to have met with 

 specimens, if they were to be found in the trade at all. 



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