|
Jade: A Personal Note 221
|
||
|
|
||
|
But
a postscript to the beautiful Chinese Jade are the other varieties of
stone also called Jade. The one which most closely resembles Chinese
Jade is known as Nephrite, which is also a very hard substance,
exceedingly tough, owing to the interlacing nature of its constituent
fibres, in opposition to diamond, which is extremely hard, but quite
brittle. I believe that it has been demonstrated that it requires no
less than a pressure of fifty tons to crush a cubic inch of nephrite.
Large pieces can, however, readily be broken up if they are first
subjected to heating, followed by rapid cooling in cold water.
Nephrite is found in Silesia, Germany, in New Zealand, Central Siberia, Alaska, and also in China.
The
largest piece of this mineral of which we have any knowledge is now on
exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in New York, and the credit
for its discovery is due to an American citizen, the late Dr. George F.
Kunz, the famous mineralogist and gemologist. He found it near
Reichenstein in Silesia.
Apart
from nephrite there is also another gem stone called Actinolite, of the
Jade order; and the green quartz Aventurine is also spoken of as Indian
Jade.
Apropos
of green stones, it occurs to me that the olivine deserves more than
passing mention, but before doing so I must needs introduce you at some
length to a very plebeian gem, namely the red garnet.
In
the Vienna of my young days the great preponderance of cooks,
housemaids and nursemaids came from Bohemia and Slavonia, the
Czecho-Slovakia of these latter
|
||
|
|
||