translucency
corresponding to that of a thin layer of wax held against the light.
But, of course, there are many opallike substances that the layman has
never heard of. Pech-opal, for instance, which is not opal at all,
though it looks like a fire opal, but only petrified resin. (For those
interested, I may mention that opal is a gelatinous form of a
silicate.)
The
gem stone which at times has an opalescent appearance is the
Labradorite. To the best of my belief it has only been found in a
single locality, namely, the island of St. Paul in Labrador; hence its
name.
In
colour this stone is of a bluish-grey, not infrequently playing into
green and orange. It is a translucent stone and choice specimens have a
somewhat chatoyant look: that is, they are like cat's eyes. As
a gem stone the Labradorite is little known to the public. My dealing
in the stone was restricted to one single specimen, a beautifully
carved head of a Red Indian. I was loath to part with it but an
American collector to whom I showed it made me an unexpectedly generous
offer before I really had time to name a prohibitive price and put him
off. Even so, I learned subsequently that it was my customer who had
scored.
This
seems the appropriate place to introduce another variety of gem stone
which is not as great a favourite with the European jewel-buying public
as with Eastern peoples, namely the cat's-eye, so called from the
pronounced chatoyant appearance I have mentioned already in connection with the Labradorite. In the cat's-eye this
