Precious Stoiies. 217 



lie saw no beauty in the rich rays emanating froni the ruby or 

 the prismatic colours flashing from the diamond. Light is a 

 thing of surpassing beauty, and any apparatus capable of dis- 

 playing its gorgeous effects will charm the thoughtful and 

 poetic mind, -whether it comes from the workshop of the 

 jeweller or that of the optician. 



Rarity, beauty, and durability are the characteristics of 

 precious stones, and from their extreme hardness the art of 

 cutting and polishing them demands a very high degree of 

 manipulative skill. Fashion, of course, rules the average taste 

 in these matters, and amongst those crystallized antiquities 

 the Chinese, stones, such as the jade, thought little of in 

 Europe, are valued at an enormous rate. Those who saw the 

 collection exhibited a little while ago at the Crystal Palace 

 could not fail to have their opinion improved of the beauty 

 of this material; and if a lifetime is spent in elaborately 

 shaping and carving it, the work of art thus created may 

 be handed down to distant generations uninjured by the lapse 

 of time. We do not know what special incidents in Chinese 

 history led their emperors and wealthy men to set such store by 

 jade ; but fine pieces are rare, and the mode of working them 

 costly, and thus, in addition to the beauty of the article pro- 

 duced, two other qualities combine to magnify its worth. 



With reference to the class of articles comprised in the 

 European jeweller's list of precious stones, beauty, rarity, and 

 durability are their general characteristics ; but superstition in 

 some ages, and fashion in all, have had their share in deciding 

 the conventional value in which they have been held. A cut 

 diamond or ruby represents a large quantity of human labour, 

 which would cease to be exerted in such a direction unless it 

 met with an average recompense in the shape of profit and 

 price. The amount of this recompense of course depends upon 

 the relative proportion of demand and supply, and we now 

 find some gems much dearer than in former times, and others 

 cheaper, as fashion has decreed the extent to which the 

 wealthy should seek for them. That portion of the value 

 of precious stones which depended upon superstition and 

 errors of science may be left out of calculation in modern 

 Europe, as no one now pays an extra price for an agate, 

 in order that by wearing it his mind may be disposed to 

 solitude, or for an amethyst to keep him sober, or for an onyx 

 to preserve him from epileptic fits. Neither do modern crimi- 

 nals, amongst the wealthier classes, buy diamonds in order to 

 reduce them to fine powder and poison enemies or rivals by 

 mixing this material with their food. Magical qualities were 

 ascribed by the Cabbalists and their followers to the mystical 

 breastplate of the Jews, and even in recent times attempts 



