COMPOUNDS OF ALUMINUM. 193 
VARIETIES. The name sapphire is usually restricted, in 
common language, to clear crystals of bright colors, used as 
gems ; while dull, dingy-colored crystals and masses are 
called corundum, ‘and the granular variety of bluish-gray 
and blackish colors containing much disseminated magne- 
tite (whence its dark color) is “called emery. 
Biue is the true sapphire color. When of other bright 
tints, 1t receives other names; as oriental ruby, when red ; 
oriental topaz, when yellow ; ortental emerald, when green ; 
oriental amethyst, when violet, and adamantine spar, when 
hair-brown. Crystals with a radiate chatoyant imterior are 
often very beautiful, and are called asteria, or asteriated 
sapphire. 
Diff. Distinguished readily by its hardness, exceeding all 
species except the diamond, and ere quartz crystals 
with great facility. 
Obs. The sapphire is often found loose in the soil. Meta- 
morphic rocks, especially gneissoid mica schist, and granu- 
lar limestone, appear to be its usual matrix. It is met with 
in several localities in the United States, but seldom sufti- 
ciently fine for a gem. <A blue variety occurs at Newton, 
N. J., in crystals sometimes several inches long; bluish and 
pink, at’ Warwick, N. Y.; ; white, blue, and reddish crystals 
at Amity, N. Y.; grayish, in large ‘crystals, in Delaware 
and Chester ae Pennsylvania ; ‘pale blue crystals 
have been found in bowlders at West Farms and Litchfield, 
Conn. It occurs also in large quantities in North Carolina, 
where crystals are numerous though rarely fit for jewelry, 
and where one has been obtained weighing 312 pounds, and 
having a reddish color outside and bluish-gray within ; also 
in Cherokee County, Georgia ; in Los Angeles County, Cali- 
fornia. Emery is mined at Chester, in Mass. 
The eer foreign localities are as follows : blue, from 
Ceylon ; the finest red from the Capelan Mountains in the 
kingdom of Ava, and smaller crystals from Saxony, Bohemia 
and Auve ergne ; corundum, from the Carnatic, on the Mala- 
bar coast, cone elsewhere in the Kast Indies ; adamanting 
spar, from the Malabar coast ; emery, in large bowlders 
from near Smyrna, and also at Naxos and several of the 
Grecian islands. 
The name sapphire is from the Greek word sappherros, 
the name of a blue gem. It is donbted whether it included 
the sapphire of the present day. 
