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PRECIOUS STONES 33
It is a thick six-sided prism, weighing thirteen hundred and fifty carats, of fine color, very clean and transparent.
The
largest opal known is in the Imperial cabinet, Vienna. It is uncut, but
free of matrix, and weighs about three thousand carats. It was found
at Czerwenitza in 1770, and shows a beautiful color play. A smaller
piece, about the size of a hen's-egg, and thought to have been at one
time a part of the larger one, is in the treasure-house of Vienna. It
is of marvellous beauty.
There
are many fine pearls among the treasures of the Hindoo princes. It is
impossible, however, to obtain definite knowledge of them. Tavernier,
during his travels in the East, saw many of them, and makes mention in
his writings of several. Many of these were pear-shape. One, in the
midst of a chain of emeralds and rubies worn occasionally by the Mogul
of his time, was egg-shaped. He sold one from the West Indian
fisheries, weighing fifty-five carats, to Shah Est Khan, uncle of the
Mogul. The Mogul had in his possession the largest round pearl
Tavernier saw in his travels. He also mentions that Imenheet, Prince of
Mascate, owned one weighing twelve and one-sixteenth carats, the skin
of which was the finest he ever saw. The King of Persia offered two
thousand tomans for it. The Mogul sent an envoy offering forty thousand
crowns, but the Arab would not sell it. The King of Persia bought a
flawless, perfect pear-shaped pearl, in 1633, of an Arab, for
thirty-two thousand tomans. One in the Beresford Hope collection in
South Kensington Museum, London, weighs four hundred and fifty-five
carats. Another in the Austrian crown, of medium quality, weighs three
hundred carats. Probably the finest large pearl known is that in the
Zosima Museum, in Moscow. It is white, round, and of fine lustre. It
weighs twenty-eight carats, and is called " La Pellegrina."
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