106 THE CURIOUS LORE OP PRECIOUS STONES
candles
or lamps had been lighted. This sapphire, still known as the "Saphire
Merveilleux," was for a time in the collection of the Duke of Orleans,
who bore the name of Philippe Egalite during the French Revolution.
The
star sapphire is that variety of sapphire in which, when the stone is
cut and rounded off horizontal with the dome of the crystal, the light
is condensed across the three lines of crystalline interference. Three
cross lines produce a star which moves as a source of light, or as it
is moved from the source of light. Star sapphires very rarely possess
the deep blue color of the fine blue sapphire; generally the color is
somewhat impure, or of a milky-blue, or else a blue-gray, or sometimes
almost a pure white. The blue-gray, gray, and white stones frequently
show a much more distinct star, possibly from the fact that there are
more inclusions between the layers of the crystals than with the darker
blue stones, as it is the set of interference bands that produces the
peculiar light. Just as the eye agate was used in some countries to
preserve against the Evil Eye, so the moving star is believed by the
Cingalese to serve as a protection and a guard against witchcraft of
all kinds.
The
great Oriental traveller, Sir Richard Francis Burton, had a large star
sapphire or asteria, as it was called. He referred to it as his
talisman, for it always brought him good horses and prompt attention
wherever he went; in fact, it was only in those places where he
received proper attention that he would show it to the natives, a
favor they greatly appreciated, because the sight of the stone was
believed to bring good luck. The fame of Burton's asteria travelled
ahead of him, and it served him well as a guiding-star. De Boot,
writing in the seventeenth century, states that such a stone was called
Siegstein (victory-stone) among the Germans.
