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the finest Burmese gems. A few of them are still to be found in
possession of dealers and connoisseurs, but the secret of the process
was lost in the death of the inventor, though the present output
seems to have been constructed on the same principle.
In 1889 some "scientific" rubies were imported by a New
York firm. They were examples of the old Indian cut, and were
here recut in modern style, but when examined by the Columbia
School of Mines, were found to be fused from natural rubies.
While not crystallized, like the true stone, they were somehow even
harder than the genuine, which yields to nothing save the diamond.
All were of fine color and quality and were sold from $60 to $150
per karat.
The secret of the "reconstruction" of rubies, through the failure
of several companies to exploit it, finally became the property of the
public, and is now successfully carried on, by means of Paquier's
ingenious apparatus, and the improved Verneuil process. They
were, and still are, made in great quantities, and their price, through
competition, has depreciated in the rough from dollars to cents.
These Paquier rubies, first given to the public in 1901, constructed
in harmony with the laws of crystallization, by a process and instrument
so simple that one wonders it was never thought of before,
are physically, chemically, and optically identical with natural rubies,
says the eminent French geologist Lacroix ; though Pinier, the leading
gem expert of Paris, declares that the false can always be distinguished
from the true by the lens. The shape of the "inclusions,"
so prominent a characteristic of natural ruby, will invariably in
the artificial be found uniform instead of irregular, while the planes
of crystallization are not always discernible.
Reconstructed rubies frequently find their way to Burmah,
where they are sold in the bazaars, perhaps innocently, as the true,
often returning to Europe in company with the native gems, the
most desired of all rubies in the world.
A canny Scotchman was congratulating himself on the wonderful
bargain he had made at Mandalay. It was a stone of perhaps
five karats, for which fifty dollars was asked, but fifteen taken.
Beside a remarkable garnet of the same size, it looked not so
unlike it, almost as dark, if more brilliant. The reconstructed rubies
first on the market were dark, sometimes brownish, and greatly
resembled garnets, though recently the improvement in both color
and brilliance has been marked. Now they are apt to suggest the
pink tourmaline, with its true ruby shade, rather than the garnet.
Under the microscope the natural ruby shows minute cracks
or cleavages running through the stone, while the reconstructed reveals
bubbles or gas-holes, caused by the cooling process, despite
every effort to make this very gradual. As in all artificial products,
the lens betrays very regular clouds and inclusions, while the natural,
according to Nature's universal law, is exceedingly irregular. Still,
it must be remembered, a reconstructed ruby is not exactly a false
ruby, simply a reproduction, through scientific knowledge and ex-
of the true. But the value of such is not a tenth of the
periment,
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