munity,
I must have been fairly outspoken on the subject of Senhalese lapidary
work, for he did me the honour of referring to my remarks in his
official report for the year ending March 27th, 1937. I am quoted as
having said to him "that the gems sent from Ceylon to England are so
badly cut that probably eighty per cent of them are never used for
jewellery at all, but are continually going from hand to hand among the
dealers. Generally the sapphires can only be used when re-cut, but it
is only when the quality of a stone is really good that it pays to
re-cut it."
And
that is exactly what I have always felt and what most Hatton Garden
dealers will readily agree. In some European countries, where the
jewellery-buying public is less fastidious than in England or in
France, bulk may well be preferred to quality, but even so, Ceylon
stones seem, in these days, destined to repose for long periods in the
coffers of merchants, much as the world's gold has to stay in the
vaults of national banks. "We dig to bury again" is a motto equally as
applicable to the Senhalese sapphire-producing community as to the
world's gold-mining companies.
Essentially
the sapphire is of the same mineral constituÂtion as the ruby. Both
belong to the corundum family. The difference is mainly one of colour.
The blue of the sapphire, which may vary from the palest shades to
deepest indigo, is according to the scientists caused by oxides of
chromium, iron or titanium. It is a strange but easily demonstrable
fact, if you have a furnace and a few gems lying handy, that if
sapphires or rubies are exposed to the effects of high temperatures
they lose their colour. On
