IMITATION GEMS AND THE ARTIFICIAL PRODUCTION OP PRECIOUS STONES.
The art
of making imitation gem-stones, although brought to a very high
standard of perfection to-day, is by no means a thing of yesterday. It
is an art that takes us back far into the remote past, almost to the
verge of prehistoric times, when man first began to think of personal
adornment.
The
early Egyptians made imitations—imitations that may have been used as
jewels, or simply as copies of rare gems. For what purpose they were
made is not known with certainty. In the tombs of upper Egypt we find "
pastes " that carry us back to the earlier dynasties, nearly 2,000 b.c. Egypt
was even then in a high state of civilisation. Later we find the
Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans making them. Pliny mentions the " glass
gems from the rings of the multitude " ; and again he says, " that so
well made were they of lying glass (mendacio vitri), that their
detection was most difficult." Coming down to our own times, the
manufacture of false jewellery has become a thriving industry, that
both employs many and pleases many, and sometimes, it is most
regrettable to say, deceives many. However, in these days of
enlightenment, very
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