present
owners over forty years ago, and containing many of the finest New
Jersey and southern New York specimens, in addition to others equally
choice, is at Dover, N. J., the William W. Jefferis collection at West
Chester, Pa., the mineralogical collection of the University of
Minnesota at Minneapolis, and the cabinet of the State Mining Bureau at
San Francisco, Cal.
The
foreign museums which contain the best American specimens are the
British Museum in London (the finest mineralogical collection in the
world), the Austrian Imperial Mineral Cabinet at Vienna; and the
collections of the Jardin des Plantes and of the ficole des Mines in
Paris. During the last ten years, the disposition to collect jade and
other hard, carved stone objects has greatly increased, especially in
the United States, owing to the stimulus given by the World's Fairs, at
Philadelphia, Paris, and Amsterdam, and the breaking up by sale of many
of the large collections. In December, 1889, a number of fine objects
was furnished by American collectors to fill four large cases for a
Loan Exhibition at the Union League Club, New York City. The value
of-carved jades, outside of China and India, cannot be less than
$2,000,000. In the United States there are, perhaps, less than a dozen
buyers, who have purchased $500,000 worth of this material. Many of the
pieces are among the finest known, such as the private seal and other
objects of the Emperor of China, taken at the sacking of the summer
palace by the Chinese themselves, after it had been looted by the
British and the French. The pieces brought by Tien Pau to Paris
included some of the finest work that ever left China: they were
intended for the Amsterdam Exposition. The choicest specimens of the
Wells, Guthrie, Michael, and Hamilton Palace collections are now owned
in the United States; and experienced agents have been frequently sent
to India and China to secure the finest objects as they presented
themselves. Even during the year 1889, after the famine in China, a
buyer securing a number of objects of priceless value.
Jade collectors may be divided into those who collect oriental jade, and those who collect archaeological jade.
Among the principal collectors in this country are Heber R.
