Page:A treatise on diamonds and precious stones including their history Natural and commercial.djvu/124

 sapphire with a pale cloudy tinge, and exhibiting the appearance of a star with six radii, which sparkles with great brilliancy as its position is varied in the rays of the sun.

gem, when extremely fine, is rare.—The best specimen known, I had the honor to sell for the private collection of his Majesty Louis XVIII.

THE ORIENTAL RUBY

esteemed the most valuable of precious stones, and is supposed to differ from the Sapphire in color alone; the hardness, form of crystallization, and specific gravity, being very nearly the same.