30 PRECIOUS STONES
sington
Musuem, London, of dark color, but not absolutely true line of light,
thirty-five and one-half millimetres long and thirty-five millimetres
thick.
A
golden-brown cat's-eye was sold in the United States, weighing eighty
and three-fourths carats. The light-line is very distinct and even for
so large a stone.
A few cat's-eyes have been found in Ceylon which exhibit the dichroism of the alexandrite.
There
are few world-renowned rubies, owing to the fact that most of the large
stones found are claimed and held jealously by the rulers of the
countries where they occur.
Tavernier
speaks of two owned by the King of Visapur, India, one of which weighed
fifty and three-fourths carats, valued at six hundred thousand francs,
and the other seventeen and one-half carats, estimated at seventy-four
thousand five hundred and fifty francs.
The King of Ava is said to have one the size of a small hen's-egg.
Gustavus
III., of Sweden, is said to have presented a fine ruby the size of a
pigeon's-egg to Catherine II., of Russia, when he visited St.
Petersburg in 1777. Mr. Edwin W. Streeter says it was cut en cabochon, and had " Thelk Lephy" engraved on one end of it.
The German emperor, Rudolph II., had one the size of a hen's-egg, which Boetius von Boot valued at sixty thousand ducats.
In
the list of French crown jewels published in 1791 the largest fine ruby
was one of seven carats, valued at eight thousand francs. A larger one,
but of light color, weighing twenty-five and eleven-sixteenths carats,
was valued at twenty-five thousand francs.
Mention
has been made of a large ruby from Thibet, weighing two thousand
carats, but it was not fully transparent. Edwin W. Streeter also
speaks of a similar stone from Burmah, of eleven hundred and
eighty-four carats.
