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The Sapphire.
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185
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Mandalay,
for 20,000 rupees. It was then cut similar to a brilliant, and reduced
in weight to 120 carats, and was ultimately disposed of in Calcutta.
The
finest Sapphire ever seen in Burma was dug up in King Mindoon Min's
reign, at Wetloo village, between Kyat-Pyin and Khabine. In the rough
it weighed 253 carats, and, when Indian cut, 161 carats. It was
purchased for the king for 7,000 rupees, and passed ultimately into
the hands of Theebaw.
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CASHMERE SAPPHIRES.
A
remarkable discovery of Sapphires was made about 20 years ago, in the
Chinab valley of the Himalayas of Cashmere (Kashmir). According to the
Rev. A. W. Heyde, a Moravian missionary, who was for many years
resident in Lahul, they were first discovered by a shikari about
the year 1880. It appears that a landslip had laid bare the rock, and
exposed the Sapphires. The precise locality was long kept secret, but
from information received by the author there is no doubt that it is
situated between the two villages of Soonjam and Machel, in the
neighbourhood of Padam, or Padar. The exact spot seems to be difficult
of access, and to be situated at a great elevation, near the limit of
perpetual snow. The surrounding rocks consist of gneiss, with
intercalated crystalline limestones, dipping to the east at an angle
of about 40 degrees. The gneiss contains Garnets, and is intersected by
veins of granite in which the Corundum occurs,. associated with much
Tourmaline. The Sapphires were found loose among the granite detritus,
in the side of a valley, high up on the mountains.
By far the greater number of the Sapphires were fragments of crystals more or less rolled. A description of
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