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PRECIOUS STONES.
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sister
of the celebrated Cato of Utica, had cost $223,200. The Empress Lollia
Paulina, wife of Caligula, wore, in a set of ornaments composed of
emeralds and pearls, the value of $1,488,000. Caligula himself, Nero,
and other of those cruel men whom history is obliged to name among her
Roman emperors, ornamented their buskins and strewed the furniture of
their saloons with pearls. Under the influence of the ideas of which we
have spoken in Part ii. pearls acquired great importance in medicine.
Even in our own time they are frequently employed medicinally; and in
China are chiefly valued on this account. Every year a large quantity
are absorbed—generally in a dissolved state—by the inhabitants of the Celestial Empire.
By
the effects of time, and of external agencies, pearls lose the
beautiful reflections which constitute all their value; often, too,
under these influences, they become more or less yellowish. There are
also natural pearls, of a beautiful form and ample size, which do not
exhibit these reflections, and whose colour is generally rather deep.
In both cases they are called dead pearls. In this state they are of very little value, and a thousand means have been tried to give them lustre.
In certain cases the operation succeeds; in others it is a complete failure.
With great difficulty the present writer obtained
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