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Burmese gem, though the price of the latter has come down thereby.
Never can the fact be controverted that the counterfeit is made
in a few days or weeks, while the true is the true the product of
centuries, if not aeons, of God's own methods.
Though highly satisfactory to the eye, artificial sapphires are
not intrinsically so perfect as artificial rubies. They are fused, not
crystallized, and their origin can be detected easily. Chemically
precisely the same, except in coloring matter, the ruby seems to
assist the scientists, the sapphire to resist them. Sapphires are
made by Louis Paris, through a process which differs from ruby
in the substitution of the blue of cobalt for the red of chromium,
and the mixture of lime, to prevent separation, as against calcined
alum, which does not interfere with the desired crystallization.
Emil Freund says the latest reconstructed sapphires are identical
with the real in every respect, but Victor Barton denies this, declaring
that not only in fusion as compared with crystallization, but
in chemical composition, density and hardness, they are not, like
the ruby, quite the same as the true gem. When doctors disagree,
who shall decide?
In the earlier process of artificial reconstruction, ruby consisted
of a small crystal of silicate of alumina, corundum in its valueless
form, colored by bichromate of potash, kept at a certain temperature
by rotation at very high speed. To this central mass was fed
small particles of natural ruby till a large bead formed. While this
was liable to crack or break when cooled, often it was a great suc-
cess, identical with the true stone in hardness, weight and composition.
Yet in color it used to come out dark, and was also full of
bubbles and wavy, circular lines, due to the rotary motion, deceiv-
ing the amateur perhaps, but never the expert.
By the Paquier process, the apparatus slightly resembling a
hopper, everything is more simple. The melted alumina passes
through a fine sieve and slender tube into a position more or less
stationary, though it can be manipulated by human hands. The result
is crystallization something after the manner of Nature. Every
day the method is becoming more and more exact, so that none can
afford to be skeptical as to the ultimate moment, the possible final
perfection.
Some of the specimens are already excellent, fully equal to a fine
pink tourmaline, the ruby's nearest neighbor in light and color, but
it seems unlikely that mere man will ever be able to approach the
incomparable tint, vitality and fire of the pigeon's blood.
The trouble is that unscrupulous men not only sometimes sell
the reconstructed, the synthetic, as the true, but also glass imita-
tions, more dazzling than the scientific at first, which increasing
deception of the innocent is suggesting special legislation for the
purchaser's protection.
There is a wide difference between real stones made by man,
known to the public comparatively recently, and the imitation,
usually of glass, in vogue for twenty centuries. Pastes are as old as
the Christian era, and doublets have held a conspicuous if not hon-
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