Notes on a New Victorian Gem. 297 
and the mistakes even the very best judges were liable to 
_make before the establishment of the science of analytical 
chemistry, I would begin by citing the most extensive and 
intelligent traveller, and even to this day one of the best 
authorities on all that appertains to gems—Tavernier. He 
lived about two centuries ago, or a little more, and was a 
most successful trader in gems, having made a huge fortune 
in that occupation. Yet he mistook some red stone, found in 
agate-balls and quartz-crystals, for the real Oriental ruby. 
A short extract will suffice to show this abundantly. He 
says :— 
“In Bohemia there are mines that produce pebbles of 
various sizes, some as large as eggs, others as large as one’s 
fist. When broken, some of these are found to contain rubies 
as hard and fine as those of Pegu. I remember being one 
day at Prague, with the Viceroy of Hungary, in whose service 
I then was, when he and General Wallenstein, Duke of 
Friedland, were washing their hands before sitting down to 
dinner. The Viceroy noticed and greatly praised the beauty 
of a ruby the General wore in a ring, but his admiration 
was increased when he was told that the mine whence it 
came was in Bohemia. When the Viceroy departed, the 
Duke presented him with a basket containing a hundred of 
the pebbles. On his arrival home the Viceroy had the stones 
broken, but out of the hundred only two were found to 
contain a ruby: one, a large gem weighing five carats ; the 
other, a ruby of one carat.”—Travels. 
There has been a good deal of conjecture as to the par- 
ticular stone which is here described by him. Some have 
thought it must have been a garnet, and certainly some of 
the Bohemian ones are very fine ; but it is quite out of the 
question that he could have been deceived if he had seen 
ae by candle light, for that stone blackens much in artificial 
ight. 
It might have been, perhaps, a zircon, or hyacinth ; but 
then nearly all of them have characters very distinctive from 
the grand ruby red, the anthrax live coal of the ancients. 
If 1 were disposed to speculate, as I said, I would go in for 
a fine specimen of the Red Tourmaline, whether cut or uncut, 
as being the most likely to have imposed itself on the 
venerable gem-trader for the true Oriental ruby. 
