106 A Book of Precious Stones
India
in the lead followed by China and then Persia. The Chinese mandarins
sometimes pay incredible sums for exceptionally fine coral buttons for
their caps.
Pieces
of coral are used for rich and costly handles of parasols and
umbrellas; the coral handle of an umbrella belonging to the Queen of
Italy being valued at nearly two thousand dollars. A coral necklace
exhibited in 1880 at the International Fisheries Exhibition held at
Berlin, was valued at nearly twenty-nine thousand dollars. In Italy
the superstition that the wearing of coral is a protection against the
evil eye, accounts for its appearance as the commonest personal
ornament among the masses; similarly, it is in evidence among the
lower class of Italians in the United States. Coral is easily imitated,
however, and most of the defences thus relied upon by superstitous
wearers are spurious, but equal to the genuine in efficacy. Red gypsum
is a common sophistication for precious coral, and simple tests are:
scratching it with the finger nail and the application of acid, under
which it does not, like genuine coral, effervesce. Celluloid is now
sometimes used as a substitute for coral.
The existence of coral within the United
