CORUNDUM. 455 



by any collection of corundum in the known cabinets of Europe — for 

 from no other locality have such specimens been found, excepting in 

 the perfect gems from Ceylon and Burmah. 



We now come to the most interesting feature of the mine. It was 

 natural that, with so much of purity in the amorphous mineral, and per- 

 fection and beauty in the crystals found with it, Colonel Jenks should 

 conclude that there might be gems in the mine. But from no quarter 

 but his own observations did he get any encouragement in this direc- 

 tion. The best English authority on gems and their localities, Prof. 

 King, of Trinity College, Cambridge, says : " The corundum gems 

 have never been found in place, but always in the alluvial or sands 

 of the rivers." After eight years of residence in Ceylon, the source 

 from which the best sapphires of the world have come from an early 

 period, and much acquaintance with the best gem-localities of the 

 island, Sir Samuel Baker remarks : " The sapphires were created in 

 the peculiar secondary formation, where they are always found, which 

 is composed of water-worn pebbles, in a conglomerate of blue and 

 white clay, buried ten to twenty feet beneath the surface of the val- 

 leys," etc. This was the opinion of Buffon, and other eminent scholars. 

 The ruby localities of Bactria, visited by Sir Alexander Burnes, are 

 said by him to be of similar character. Sir James Tennent, in his 

 elaborate work upon Ceylon, expresses similar views, yet ventures 

 the opinion, from a survey of the whole subject, that gems might be 

 found in place in the island. He says, in confirmation of this view, that 

 he saw in one of the mountain-ranges " a stratum of gray granite, with 

 iron pyrites and molybdena, which contained great quantities of very 

 small rubies." Whether he ascertained the nature of the gems he calls 

 rubies by analysis, or only from casual observation, he does not say ; 

 but garnets of great beauty so often occur in such a matrix that it would 

 not be safe to rely on those stones he saw — unless analyzed — as the 

 ruby corundum. Seeking information from a later, and perhaps we 

 are justified in saying, on this matter, the most eminent authority, 

 that of Dr. J. Lawrence Smith, of Kentucky, he says, in substance : 

 "The gems of corundum cannot be expected to appear where the 

 amorphous masses of the mineral abound, and, vice versa, that corun- 

 dum, for commerce, will not be found with the precious gems," etc., 

 his conclusion being based upon " the diverse composition of the two 

 forms of the mineral, shown by analysis, and which would require for 

 their formation different geological and mineralogical conditions," etc. 

 Not dismayed by this array of scientific opinion and experience, 

 however, Colonel Jenks made careful examination of the material as it 

 came from the miners' hands, and the results led him to give them 

 special instructions as to the nature of their operations. As the geodes 

 in the formation of silica have been found to contain the finest quartz 

 crystals, he hoped to find in the mine something of the same character, 

 of alumina. He was rewarded by one or more large pockets of geodes 



