FINDING A CLUE.
Next morning I jumped into an omnibus and rode down town. I went to a lapidary on John Street, with whom I had a slight acquaintance, and at once showed him my sapphires. He looked at them just an instant, and asked what I wanted to know about them. I asked what he called those stones.
“Well,” he replied, with a smile, “they are very good imitations of sapphires.”
“Imitations!”
“Yes, imitations; I ought to know, for I made them myself.”
A gigantic flea at that instant—a flea as large as an elephant—entered my right ear, and jumped about like a schoolboy exercising across a gutter. The lapidary continued, that he made the stones to order, and three others at the same time, about a month before, but declined to tell me for whom they were made. They were made of strass, a fine article of glass, consisting mainly of potash, oxide of lead, borax, and silex. Nearly all artificial gems are made of strass, and the colors are obtained by adding certain oxides while the substance is in a state of fusion. Diamonds, sapphires, rubies, and amethysts, made of strass, may deceive a novice, and even be made so skilfully as to require a careful test before deciding on their character; but you can no more sell them for genuine to a regular dealer than you can make a butcher buy a poodle under the belief that it is a bull-dog.
I returned the gems to the professor that evening, with the brief explanation that my friend was averse to a speculation on account of a lack of funds, and that an unexpected development had rendered it impossible for me to invest. He did not press for an explanation, and we separated with mutual regrets.
Another time a man who had been for several years on the Pacific coast came to New York, and lived a month or two at my hotel, without any appearance of business. I formed an acquaintance with him one day at the table, and found that he was a good talker, and well informed on mining matters. Our acquaintance ran on a week or so, and one day he invited me to his room, and showed me some specimens of copper ore. They were of wonderful richness, and while I was looking at them he explained that he knew where there was a vein six feet wide and a half a mile long of just such ore. He said it in the most careless way imaginable, and remarked that he thought he had about as good a thing as there was going.
A BOGUS COPPER MINE.
I thought so, too; and after a few minutes’ conversation we separated. Nothing more was said for several days, when finally he asked if I knew anybody who would like to join him in working the mine and sharing the profits. There was more than he wanted for himself, and he would like to be relieved of the trouble of looking after it. The mine was on the Colorado River, in Lower California, and was a very easy one to work. I took some of his samples of ore, and showed them to a speculating friend, who said, “This is a wonderfully rich ore, and there is no end of money in it, if he is talking the truth. It is worth looking into, but we must be cautious.”