Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/849

Rh stone of Dr. Jackson). The actinolite, when in straight layers in the quartz, occasionally forms a quartz cat's-eye, if cut across the fibers.

The large pieces of black onyx, chrysoprase, carnelian, and sardonyx, the series of agates, of various colors, are cut into a variety of forms; the tine three-inch-square slab of "gold quartz," of the jewelers, is from Grass Valley, California.

Fine avanturine quartz, with spangles of mica in a rich reddish-brown quartz, from Russia, vases of which are often worth thousands of dollars; and a line green avanturine, called imperial jade by the Chinese, and more esteemed by them than any of the true jades deserve attention. The series of fifteen small Indian mocha-stones is very attractive; the black, moss-like markings are relieved by the red spots in the gray body of the stone, thus presenting a surface beautifully diversified. A rich, brown, speckled jasper is worthy of notice. The two cut moldavites (Moravian bottle-glass), about one inch across, are of rare occurrence. They are transparent, dark-green obsidians, from Moravia, for which worthless green bottle-glass has sometimes been sold.

The two sun-stones from Norway—the largest one and a half inch long, the other a three-quarter-inch cut cabochon—are indeed line, but a cut stone of the same material, over one inch long, from Delaware County, Pennsylvania, is nearly equal to them. Labradorites are fully represented, some polished pieces being over one foot across, and a number showing the beautiful chatoyant colors to perfection.

Amber, yellow, transparent, and containing flies and other insects, is present in the form of cut stones and beads.

A rich, dark-brown cut aragonite from California, and the beautiful green, copper-colored Smithsonite (a zinc-ore), from Laurium, Greece, demand special notice. One is a cut cabochon over one inch high, the other an ideal piece of the natural mineral. We observe also a tine polished malachite from Siberia, and a dish of the highly prized dark-blue fluorite from Derbyshire, England, where it is familiarly known as "blue John." Vases of this material have often been sold for over one thousand dollars. A slab of the Persian lapis-lazuli, and one of the white-veined variety from the Peruvian Andes, well represent this species. A jade pendant, three inches long and of good color, is one of the sort made in Germany to sell in New Zealand as genuine aboriginal workmanship. Also a flat vase made of a light-green Chinese jade, and one of the small bracelets of the same material, which are put on the arms of girls in early childhood, and allowed to remain there until the natural growth of the arm fixes them so tightly that they can not be removed over the hand. A rich yellow flower chiseled out of serpentine, about four inches by two, is very pretty, as is a curious, fanciful, dragon-like, talc ornament from Southern India. Red, white, and mottled agalmatolite (Chinese figure-stone), from China, is interesting.