Since 1882, when the
" Handbook of Precious Stones " was published, the volume has been
several times reprinted from stereotype plates. Occasionally a few
alterations and corrections were made in the text, but no opportunity
occurred to improve the arrangement of the work or to add fresh
material. The present issue, however, represents a thoroughly revised
edition. A large number of paragraphs have been wholly rewritten, while
so many additions have been made to the accounts given of the different
kinds of precious stones and other beautiful minerals that the 112 pages of the original handbook have been increased to 140. Among the minerals which have now received fuller treatment may be named—diamond,
sapphire and ruby, and the different varieties of garnet and of zircon.
But readers who desire to make themselves more intimately acquainted
with the optical properties, the crystal-forms and intimate structure,
the modes of occurrence and formation and the chemical composition and
constitution of precious stones, will find it necessary to turn to
works in which full details of these subjects are given. In this
connection may be named the treatises of Dana, of Professor Lewis of
Cambridge, Professor Maskelyne and Professor Miers, for in the pages of
the present handbook only such scientific considerations find place as
can be easily grasped, and which, at the same time, help to explain the
beauty of precious stones and afford methods of identifying the
different kinds.
The
chief localities where precious stones are found have been named in
Chapter VII. under the headings of the several species and varieties.
But this subject cannot be adequately discussed without having recourse
