Page:A treatise on diamonds and precious stones including their history Natural and commercial.djvu/30

xiv is, has remained steady in this, one of her earliest attachments, during probably three or four thousand years.

fascinating beauty of this gem, depending on its unrivalled brilliancy, was unquestionably the original cause of its attracting admiration, and which still upholds it in universal estimation: notwithstanding the smallness of its size, there is no substance, natural or artificial, that can sustain any comparison with it in this respect. The vivid and various refractions of the opal, the refreshing tint of the emerald, the singular and beautiful light that streams