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King: Precious Stones and Gems

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viii
PREFACE.
history as will be required by the general reader, who wants nothing more than the knowledge necessary to enable him to recognise a precious stone when presented to him by chance in its native condition.
Now that British gold-mining is exciting so much interest, from the unexpected success which has attended its prose­cution in North Wales, the details here collected respecting the operations and processes of the ancients in the same art will doubtless prove acceptable to many; especially as we are now re-opening the placers anciently worked by the Roman masters of those regions according to the very methods so fully specified by my authorities.
My subject having thus been approached from so many different sides, and so much more comprehensively than has yet been attempted in our language, there seems a fair pros­pect of my labours proving acceptable not only to the classical student and the archaeologist, but also to the unlearned admirer of these flowers of the mineral kingdom, as well as to the intelligent jeweller who may be disposed to see in gems something more than mere baubles got up to sell. A treatise of this kind seldom obtains a continuous perusal; when, therefore, the same quotation or remark appeared equally illustrative of two different articles, it has been introduced a second time without scruple. In writing with no other pur­pose than to give information concerning matters somewhat obscure, tautology is less to be avoided than indistinctness of meaning ; besides, such repetitions serve to render each article complete in itself. And for the same reason a book mainly designed for a book of reference, being only available to the consulter through the medium of the index, special attention has been bestowed upon that part to render it serviceable by its fulness and accuracy.
The decorative tailpieces serve also to exemplify the value of the glyptic art (the sole art that literally works for immor­tality, and of whose particular materials the pages treat), in
King: Precious Stones and Gems Page of 453 King: Precious Stones and Gems
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