gems, gem dealing, jewels, jewelry

Sinkankas: The author assumes the name of “Sutton,” a London jeweler, for the purpose of recounting a series of fictitious but highly interesting stories involving gems, jewels, and the gem trade. The gemological information is accurate and carries the ring of authority. A popular work in its day, at least one identical reprint was issued. A later issue, in maroon cloth, gold lettering on cover with blind logo in a box, and gold spine title, beveled boards, plain endpapers, measured 22.6 × 14.6 cm (8 7/8 × 5 3/4 in.). Uncut. The front illustration fitted with tissue; the advertisements are different and the pages for same are numbered. Price 5s.

Corundum., gems

King presents a detailed preliminary survey of the corundum deposits of Georgia, describing their geographical distribution, geological occurrence, mineral associations, methods of mining, and economic importance. He examines the principal deposits of northern Georgia, where corundum occurs chiefly in association with peridotite and its altered products, and provides descriptions of individual mines and prospects, the character and quantity of their corundum, and the rocks and minerals accompanying it. Particular attention is given to the origin and geological relationships of the deposits, prospecting and extraction methods, preparation of corundum for market, production, and its principal use as an abrasive. The report also records variations in the color and quality of Georgia corundum and occurrences of material of potential gemological interest. Illustrated with geological and locality information, the bulletin provides an important late nineteenth-century account of Georgia’s corundum industry and the geology upon which its commercial exploitation depended.

corundum, USA.12, North Carolina.12, Montana.12, gems

Kunz reviews the production, occurrence, mining, and trade of precious stones during 1892, with particular attention to developments in the United States. He records American gem production and discusses diamonds and a wide range of colored and ornamental stones, including sapphire, turquoise, tourmaline, garnet, beryl, quartz, opal, and other materials. The turquoise deposits of the southwestern United States receive specific attention [763–764], while the report also describes contemporary American sapphire occurrences and other newly developed or investigated gem localities. A substantial section is devoted to diamonds, including American occurrences and developments in the South African industry, with discussion of diamond-bearing rocks, mining, production, and contemporary ideas concerning diamond genesis. As in Kunz’s earlier annual reports, economic information is combined with mineralogical and gemological observations, making the paper an important contemporary record of the rapidly developing American gem industry and of the international precious-stone trade at the end of the nineteenth century.

gems, early lapidaries, Greek, Roman, history of gemology

Mély examines ancient lapidary literature in relation to the inscribed stone stamps used by Greco-Roman oculists for marking medicinal preparations. By comparing the names and supposed properties of mineral substances recorded in medical and lapidary texts with the inscriptions preserved on these oculists’ stamps, he attempts to clarify obscure terminology and trace the transmission of mineral-based medical recipes from Antiquity into the early Middle Ages. The study is particularly relevant to the history of gemstones and mineralogy because it treats ancient stone names not simply as literary curiosities but as part of practical pharmacological traditions, illustrating the close historical relationship between lapidaries, medicine, and materia medica.

gems, beryl, emerald, Egypt, Russia

Sinkankas: The discovery of the Alexandrian hoard of gemstones and other materials, including glasses, enamels, partly-worked, and finished gemstones during 1867–9, inspired the present study of Egyptian emeralds in a monograph of great historical and archaeological value, not to mention the numerous gleanings of pertinent information from ancient writers who mentioned Egyptian emerald. As a result of the discovery of the hoard, a controversy arose concerning the origin of the emeralds—were they from Egypt or were they from the Urals? Andreas Arzruni, the eminent European mineralogist, was called in to examine the specimens and compare them to emeralds from Gebel Sabara in Egypt and from the Urals. From his examinations, especially of inclusions, he concluded that the Alexandrian stones were from Gebel Sabara. In the course of his study, Schneider examined works by K.R. Lepsius (1810–1884), a German Egyptologist, Leo Africanus, Diodorus Siculus, Ptolemy Philadelphus, Solinus Polyhistor, Aelian, Lucian, Strabo, Olympiodorus, and other ancient writers, and took much from a treatise on gemstones by Masudi (Abu-al-Hasan Ali al-Masudi, d. 956 AD) and Achmed Teifaschi (13th c. Cairo gem dealer), not to mention much later accounts of travelers, explorers, and visitors to the Gebel Sabara emerald mines. Among the latter may be mentioned Frederic Cailliaud (1787–1869), whose account is referenced elsewhere in the present bibliography, and who rediscovered the emerald mines in 1816. [919] The present account by Schneider is of great importance but is rarely mentioned in the ordinary gemological bibliographies; it deserves translation into English and other languages. USGS Kunz Coll, GS 34-1005.

corundum, Sri Lanka.12, pearls, gems

Walters’s Palms & Pearls is an illustrated account of a prolonged stay in Ceylon, written from opportunities the author believed gave him greater familiarity with the island than that of an ordinary traveler. He describes its scenery, towns, vegetation and wildlife, together with the everyday life, customs, religions, occupations, and social conditions of its inhabitants. The narrative combines personal travel experiences with observations on Colombo, Kandy and the hill country, Buddhist temples and ceremonies, agriculture and plantation life, indigenous animals, and other features of late nineteenth-century Ceylon. Of particular gemological interest are his descriptions of pearls and the celebrated pearl fisheries, including the methods and conditions under which pearl oysters were obtained and the people associated with the industry. The work provides a contemporary British traveler’s view of Ceylon shortly before the end of the nineteenth century.

gems, synthetic gems, synthetic spinel

Meunier surveys the experimental methods by which minerals could be reproduced artificially, presenting mineral synthesis as a means of investigating the conditions under which natural minerals and rocks formed. He describes techniques involving fusion, sublimation, reactions at high temperatures, the action of gases and vapors, hydrothermal processes, and crystallization from molten or dissolved substances, reviewing experiments by numerous nineteenth-century investigators. The work treats the artificial production of a wide range of mineral species and discusses the significance of successful syntheses for mineralogy and geology. Of particular gemological interest are experiments involving the synthesis of corundum and ruby, including the work of Gaudin, Ebelmen, Sainte-Claire Deville, Caron, Frémy, and Feil, in which alumina was crystallized under various high-temperature conditions and chromium compounds were used to produce ruby coloration. The volume provides a useful contemporary synthesis of experimental mineralogy immediately before Verneuil’s development of a commercially practical method for producing synthetic ruby.

gems, corundum, History.1, spinel, carbuncle

Ernault presents a biographical and literary study of Marbode (Marbodus), Bishop of Rennes (1035–1123), examining his life, ecclesiastical career, intellectual milieu, and surviving writings. Particular attention is devoted to Marbode’s Latin poetry and didactic works, including the celebrated Liber lapidum or De lapidibus, a verse lapidary describing stones and the medicinal, magical, and symbolic virtues traditionally attributed to them. Ernault considers the sources, manuscripts, editions, and literary character of Marbode’s writings and places them within the scholarly and religious culture of the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. For the history of gemology, the study is especially useful for establishing the authorship, textual history, and context of the Liber lapidum, one of the most influential medieval European lapidaries and an important conduit through which Classical and late-antique traditions concerning precious stones were transmitted into medieval literature.

corundum, quality.10, gems

This guide provides a room-by-room catalogue of the treasures displayed in the Royal Green Vaults (Grünes Gewölbe) in Dresden, describing the objects exhibited in the eight rooms of the western wing of the Royal Palace. The collection is particularly important for gemological and jewelry history, encompassing jewels, precious and ornamental stones, carved hardstones, rock crystal, gold- and silversmiths’ work, and other richly mounted objects from the Saxon royal collections. Individual entries briefly identify and describe the objects, making the volume a useful nineteenth-century record of the arrangement and contents of one of Europe’s most important historic treasuries. The 1889 English edition was published in Dresden by Wilhelm Baensch and contains 88 pages, with engraved plates and illustrations.

corundum, ruby, sapphire, Sri Lanka.12, gems

Busz describes corundum specimens from Ceylon, concentrating on their crystallographic form and physical characteristics. He records the crystal forms and combinations displayed by the specimens and discusses their habit and surface development, adding to the detailed mineralogical characterization of Ceylonese corundum. The short paper is principally crystallographic rather than an account of mining or gem production and is of gemological interest for its documentation of the morphology of corundum from one of the historically important sources of ruby and sapphire.