The Love Stone: 15 



THE LOVE STONE. 



Queen Victoria has made the opal fashionable again. All the 

 gifts of jewelry that she has bestowed among her friends for the 

 past year have been opals. 



To-day they are loo per cent, higher than they were a year 

 ago. Good ones sell for $55 a carat, and increase in price in 

 almost the same ratio as diamonds. 



The jewelers and precious stone dealers of the eighteenth 

 century, who had invested largely in opals, were nearly thrown 

 into bankruptcy by Sir Walter Scott, who, in one of his Waverly 

 Novels, pretty nearly ruined the opal's reputation forever. 



The best opals are said to come from Hungary, and everybody 

 sends there for them. Now, the truth is that the best opal mines 

 are in America, just where nobody is willing to tell, and the Hun- 

 garian merchants have been having them shipped to Hungary, 

 where they are sold as a home product. 



The ancients called the opal the *' love stone," and no blooded 

 young Roman or Greek would have even faintly considered 

 engaging himself in marriage if he hadn't an opal ring for the 

 girl.— Selected. 



NECROLOGY. 



Kendric Stillman Smith, born at Bellville, Illinois, January 24, 

 1869-, <die<^ ii"! San Diego, November 6, 1886. He was a careful, 

 thorough young man of great promise, interested in oology and 

 philately, and an earnest Christian. 



Prof H. H. Straight, formerly principal of the State Normal 

 School at Normal, Illinois, and a well-known educator, died at 

 Pasadena, California, November 19, 1886. 



A CENTURIAN 



A distinguished French chemist, Michel Eugene Chevreul, 

 celebrated his one hundredth year on the 31st of August. He 

 demonstrated that oils and fats contained margarine, oleine and 

 steariiie. Hence, the stearine c mdle. He was director of the 

 Gobelins Dye Works sixty years, and a close observer of the 

 harmony of colors, ere. He presided over the Museum of 

 Natural History many years and only gave it up in 1883. Mr. 

 Chevreul owes his longevity to his strong constitution, temper- 

 ance, industry and regular habits. — Scientific American. 



