We are chiefly indebted for the sapphire to the East Indies and the Island of Ceylon, where it is found amongst the sand of the rivers. When brought into Europe, it is cut by means of diamond powder, and polished with emery. It is now usually set with a foil of its own colour; but it was formerly the practice, instead of foil, to place under this stone the blue part of a peacock’s feather.
In hardness the sapphire ranks next to the ruby ([54]); and in value it is about equal to the emerald ([67]). A good sapphire of ten carats’ weight is worth about fifty guineas. In the Museum of Natural History at Paris there is a sapphire which weighs upwards of sixty-six carats: it was placed there from the wardrobe of the crown.
We are informed by M. Hauy that sapphires are found in Bohemia and France, particularly in one part of the Ville du Puy, among the sand of a rivulet near Expailly. In the summer-time, when the rivulet is nearly dry, they are collected by persons, each of whom is furnished with a small tray and a linen bag. Where-ever there are small depressions in which the water has been stationary, these persons enter them, and fill their trays with the sand. This they wash in water in such manner that the lighter particles are carried away; whilst the heavier ones of gravel, sapphire, and other articles, remain at the bottom.
Some sapphires exhibit a kind of opalescence, or whitish floating light in their interior. Sapphires lose all their colour in the fire; and, after having been subjected to heat, they are so hard and transparent as sometimes to be sold for diamonds.
54. ORIENTAL RUBY is a precious stone of intense and bright red colour, occasionally varied with blue, and sometimes party-coloured.
In the general form of its crystals it much resembles the sapphire ([53]).
The ruby is imported into this country from the East Indies, though seldom in a rough state, as the stones are almost always first cut by the Indians for the purpose of ascertaining their value. They are said to be found in the sand of certain streams near the town of Sirian, the capital of Pegu; and with sapphires in the sand of rivers in Ceylon. But they are so seldom seen of large size, that a ruby above thirty-one carats’ weight, of perfect colour, and without flaws, is even more estimable than a diamond of equal weight. The ruby is usually set with a foil; but, if peculiarly fine, it is sometimes set without bottom, that the stone may be seen through.
Tavernier, the Eastern traveller, states that, in the throne of the Great Mogul, he saw 108 rubies, which, on an average, weighed from 100 to 200 carats each. Among the jewels of the King of Candy, that were sold by auction in London, on the 13th of June, 1820, was a ruby which measured two inches in length, and one inch in breadth. It was, however, interesting only as a specimen for a cabinet, for it had, in various directions, a great number of small hair-like tubes running through it.
The hardness of this stone is such that the ancients do not appear to have possessed the art of cutting it; and, in the improvements which of late have been made by Mr. Earnshaw in the construction of time-keepers, no stones have been found sufficiently hard for jewelling the holes, except the ruby and the diamond.
There are several modes of counterfeiting rubies; and some persons have succeeded so well in imitating these stones, that even the most able lapidaries, till they try the hardness, may be deceived.