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We should naturally have anticipated that, during the cooling of the mass, the flinty portion would be the first to consolidate; and that the different varieties of feldspar, as well as garnets and tourmalines, being more easily liquefied by heat, would be the last.
The magnified images of these plates, with their axes at right-angles to each other, are now before you. Introducing between them a film of selenite, you observe that by turning the film round it may be placed in a position where it has no power to abolish the darkness of the superposed portions of the tourmalines. Why is this?
Be this also as it may, our ever-enterprising and active-minded Admiral determined to bring this reputation to the proof; and, one day at dinner at the governor's table, actually announced his intention of having a hunt for the sapphires, rubies, tourmalines, chrysoberyls, and corundums, for which the island has been long celebrated.
It is important to note that the plane of vibration of this transmitted light is at right angles to that of the reflected light. One word more. When the tourmalines are crossed, the space where they cross each other is black. But we have seen that the least obliquity on the part of the crystals permits light to get through both.
The green fluor-spar which Haüy called "emeraude de Carthagène" may also be substituted, but the application of the file detects the trick with ease. Some of the green tourmalines approach the emeralds in hue very closely, and by artificial light it is impossible to distinguish them from each other. Fragments of quartz may be stained by being steeped in green-colored tinctures.
This county has also some fine specimens of garnets, and beautiful tourmalines are being mined at a profit. San Bernardino County yields a superior grade of turquoise from which has been realized as much as eleven thousand dollars a year. Chrysoprase is being mined in Tulare County, also the beautiful new green gem something like clear jade, called Californite.
But to-day we are unable to verify the assertion, or point to a single specimen similar in hue to the emerald from the above-mentioned locality. The nearest approach to the emerald in color, with the exception of the incomparable green tourmalines from Maine, are the beryls of North and South Royalston in the State of Massachusetts.
Joan handled them all with gasps of reverence. "And this, Margot? How green it is!" "A peridot for a dewdrop in a leaf of gold. And there, Question-mark, are the pink tourmalines I propose to use for rosebuds in this necklace of silver leaves." "And blue sapphires!" "They are for pools of sea-water in some golden seaweed and the pearls are for buds in some cherry leaves."
MM. Huc and Gabet allude to the same tradition under another form. There is nothing remarkable in the geology of Choongtam: the base of the hill consists of the clay and mica slates overlain by gneiss, generally dipping to the eastward; in the latter are granite veins, containing fine tourmalines.
They are many and marvellous, in their antique settings. I don't want to brag. It humiliates me to speak to you as I am speaking. But I am heart-set on you, and to win you there is not a precious stone I would leave unturned. Conceive a parure all of white stones diamonds, white sapphires, white topazes, tourmalines. Another, of rubies and amethysts, set in gold filigree.
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