Portal logo
66                                 PRECIOUS STONES.
in the possession of Lady Burdett-Coutts, and the Duke of Devon­shire ; a good rose-cut sapphire may be seen in the Mineral Gallery of the British Museum, while in the collection of minerals in the Jardin des Plantes of Paris is the famous Rospoli sapphire weighing carats. The saphir merveilleux, formerly in the Hope collection, is not a typical specimen, for it is pale in colour and assumes an amethystine hue at night. Still, in its original form, an octagon fths of an inch across, and weighing nearly 24 carats, it presented features of interest. It had once belonged to Egalite, Due d'Orleans ; it brought 700 guineas when sold at Christie's on May 12, 1886. Unfortunately it has been since recut.
The sapphire was engraved sometimes in the later Roman days, but more frequently in the cinque-cento time. The pendent sapphires in the votive crowns of the Guarrazar treasure (7th century) in the Cluny Museum, and those on the front of the Pala d'oro in the church of Sant' Ambrogio at Milan (8th century) are of Indian origin, perforated and roughly polished, but not faceted. Small polished sapphires en cabochon are frequently found set in gold rings of stirrup form, and having a projecting bezel—worn by lay persons as well as by ecclesiastics in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Amongst the rarer corundums is the pure green sapphire or oriental emerald. But greenish and greenish blue corundums, generally pale, as are most of those from Montana, or somewhat in­clined towards an olive hue, like the majority of the green sapphires from Ceylon, are by no means uncommon. The true oriental amethyst or purple sapphire is occasionally met with of a full tone ; it is an interesting and beautiful stone, strongly dichroic, and often made up of alternate layers of ruby and sapphire. Violet specimens of poor quality are generally " fired," so as to change them into pale rubies. White sapphires of perfect purity do not seem to be com­mon : a fine specimen of 26 carats is in the author's collection, but there is not a single good cut example in the Jermyn Street Museum, the Natural History Museum, or in the Townshend collection.