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Gems That Are Not Stones 233
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You
will remember that there are spinel rubies, which are tinted red. The
rareness of the white spinel lay in its lack of colour, every other
known specimen being tinted in one way or another—red, blue, green, etc.
There
appears to be no record of what happened to the stone after its
rejection by royalty. If it was not irretrievably lost or destroyed, it
may still grace an old-fashioned brooch or pendant, lying forgotten in
some chest or drawer as an heirloom of no great consequence. Or (and
these things happen more frequently than we are aware of) it may have
lain for decades in the dust-laden window of a provincial antique or
bric-à-brac shop, in full view of all who pass by—among whom
undoubtedly are many who spend half their time dreaming about getting
rich quick!
Perhaps
you or I will one day walk into a low-ceilinged shop and ask the old
gentleman with the duster and the skull cap what the price is of that
white stone trinket between the bamboo chopsticks and the book of
sporting prints. You will ask calmly, but with suppressed excitement,
you will accept a small parcel together with the change out of a note
of small dimensions, and you will walk off jubilantly with the rarest
gem in the world—a white spinel of magnificent proportions, for the
possession of which all the museums of Europe and America would compete.
The list of precious and semi-precious stones must be kept open sine die, like the lists of the known heavenly bodies, of the elements, the planets, the species of insects.
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