September I, 1890.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
165 
would largely overcome such inferiority a s exists in our 
soil of gneissic origin as compared with the volcanic 
soil of Java; but it would be wrong as well as absurd 
to contend that in soil suitable for the growth of the 
best species of cinchona Java has not a real ad- 
vantage over Ceylon. It is the undoubted fact that 
she has. 

PAPER LINING FOE TE:\, CHESTS. 
An Assam planter writes: — “ I see someone 
advertising paper for lining tea chests, instead of 
JcacL A man in Darjeeling called Linbury (I 
think) patented this years ago. Mackinnon, Mac- 
kenzie and Company tried it on • Sookim-barry,’ 
but they found the glue a bother and gave it up. 
The other Ceylon patent, lead and paper com- 
bined, is the thing if it can he produced cheap 
enough.” 
GEMMING AND MINING. 
We are glad to learn that the work begun by 
the Everton and Barra Company is being actively 
prosecuted. Mr. Badlalay has come on the Ulan 
in his Everton mines, while the Barra plumbago 
deposits are being elaborately developed and very 
fine samples of what seems to be large deposits 
have been valued at £12 a ton on the cart. 
It will probably not be long before we hear of the 
Company for whom Mr. Barrington Brown reported. 
The London Syndicate has by no means lost 
heart, but is rather more interested in the v/ork 
before them. They have secured by lease ex- 
tensive plumbago lands and there can be no doubt 
of their Company being floated and work being com- 
menced in Ceylon. 

ARTIFICIAL PRECIOUS STONES. 
We wonder if Mr. Charles Bryant, whom we 
assume to be the well-known mineralogist and 
jeweller, is quite as confident as in his letter, 
published in Monday’s Standard, he proclaims him- 
self to be. However sincere he may wish to be, we 
should doubt it a little. It was recently announcedf 
as most of our readers will have seen, that Mr. 
Greville Williams had actually made real emeralds 
out of the refuse of a gas retort, and could, if 
he thought it worth while, make other gems — not 
imitations, be it understood, but the real articls 
— with all the qualities by which experts usually 
test the genuineness of precious stones. That was 
rather a shook to the buyers of emeralds, and 
accordingly Mr. Bryant steps forward to say that 
the process costs a great deal more than a stone 
purchased from a jeweller would, and that experi- 
ments of the kind have during the greater part of 
this century been occasionally successful. As long 
ago as 1837, Gaudin the chemist produced artificial 
rubies ; sapphires have been made repeatedly ; the 
spinel ruby has been evolved in such perfection 
as to deceive the most experienced buyers ; while 
even diamonds have been manufactured — if that 
is the right word — though in sizes too small to be 
of any practical value in commerce. Nevertheless, 
the market for precious stones has never been 
affected, and it will not be, Mr. Bryant thinks, 
by Mr. (ireville Wdliams’s very interesting experi- 
ments. That is true, and will doubtless bo com- 
forting to jewel-owners ; but, as Mr. Bryant is 
much too clever a man not to perceive, it does 
not quite cover the whole case. Mr. Williams 
may not have solved the great problem, which is, 
of course, to produce precious stones by artificial 
means at a profitable rate ; but surely every 
successful experiment is a step forward towards 
the realisation of the ideal ? The usual course of 
inventions is for the man of science to discover 
a method, for the practical chemist or mechanician 
to apply it, and for the trader by gradual pressure 
to secure any needful reductions in the cost ; and 
we do not know any reason why precious stones 
should escape the law which is at this moment, 
if we may believe prospectuses, operating in the 
case of the rarer metals, such as osmium. With 
all respect for Mr. Bryant, we should say, judging 
merely as outside observers, that the danger to 
jewel owners, though not pressing, was both teal and 
considerable, and that a bad quarter of an hour 
was for them quite within the limits of possibility. 
They may suffer as landlords have done, and will 
probably make more fuss. They have rather a seri ms 
stake in the matter, too. No one, not even Mr. 
Bryant, would venture to offer a serious estimate 
of the value of all the precious stones in Europe 
and America — we purposely exclude the enormous 
quantities scatered over Asia, the “ buckets of 
jewels,” for instance, known to be in the possession 
of the Shah— but guessing by the light of the dia- 
mond statistics, a hundred millions sterling would 
be far too low a figure to assume. That is a large 
mass of property, and a great chemist who happened 
to understand mineralogy, and devoted himself for 
a few years to the manufacture of precious stones, 
might some fine morning run its value down to a 
quite unexpected degree. He would try, we dare say, 
to keep his processes secret, and would avail him- 
self of the Patent Laws; but this is the nineteenth 
century, nothing remains secret long, patents do not 
last for ever, and the cost even of a premature 
panic in the jewel market would be represented by 
millions. We may be told that such a discovery 
is impossible, even by an Edison of mineralogy ; 
but we should like to know more precisely why. 
The constituent.s of every precious stone are per- 
fectly well known, and are all obtainable ; and the 
writer in the Standard who points to the difficulty 
of ascertaining the exact proportions in which such 
constituents should be used, underrates the patience 
of scientific analysts. If they were at work on the 
subject with a great object, and with the sort of 
passion with which electricians and mechanicians 
are now working to overcome the last difficulties 
in the way of the electric motor, they would find 
the right formulas soon enough. Mr. Williams 
has found them, according to the Standard, 
for making emeralds, and there is nothing to 
make the manufacture of emeralds more easy 
than that of other stones. The only active agency 
wanted is transcendent heat, and the chemists and 
electricians between them are now, we fancy, in 
full possession of the means of producing that. 
We bow to experts at all times on their own 
subjects, but it is not clear to the lay mind why, 
as jewels are already made, they should not be 
made in quantities, or why the processes should 
be so enormously cosily as they are invariably, and 
to our minds rather too eagerly, represented to be. 
Wherein lies this element of inordinate cost, if 
the process is once so well known that ordinary 
manufacturing chemists can venture to attempt it? 
We are inclined to think that the great obstacle 
is not that, but the idea that the manufacture of 
any precious stone must be useless, because if once 
it could be manufactured readily, its value would 
disappear. N'lbodi', it is supposed, would want 
made emera ds, any m ire than they woull want 
those often really wo- derful imitations which some- 
times perple.x even experienced jewellers. Now is 
that fancy quite well founded ? ’ 
