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TOURMALINE.
Little Dutch children, toward the end of the seventeenth cen-
tury, playing with a pretty crystal under the torrid sun of Ceylon,
which was than a dependency of Holland, noticed that it attracted
light bodies, straw, paper, ashes, at one end while repelling them
at the other. It was soon exhibited in Europe as a curiosity, and was
considered a sort of magnet. For fifty years further it appears to
have been little known, as Linnaeus, the first to attribute its attractive
powers when heated to electricity, had never seen one. In 1740
a specimen was worth ten Dutch florins, and it was finally christened
tourmaline, a corruption of its Cingalese appellation.
Tourmaline is now found not only in Ceylon, but Burmah, the
Ural Mountains, Brazil, besides Maine, Massachusetts and California.
Its colors are often beautiful, and the gems of good size.
Red tourmaline, called rubellite, and strikingly like the ruby, is the
most valuable. In the American Museum of Natural History, there
is a superb example of rubellite, cut brilliant and weighing 11 7/32
karats, from Madagascar. Red are found in Burmah, Maine and
California. The Californian, in San Diego County, while abundant,
is said not to be as good quality as the Maine. Mount Mica at Paris,
Maine, and Mount Apatite at Auburn, give forth abundantly the
finest tourmalines in the world, of all colors save brown. Dark and
yellowish-brown abound not only in Ceylon,
but two or three
hundred miles southeast of the Vale of Cashmere, in the Himalayas,
where green is also abundant, but the crystals are small. Beautiful
green in all shades, light, dark, olive, grass, comes from Maine,
California, and particularly Brazil, where there is little of the red
but abundance of green, the most widely distributed on earth and
the cheapest. Usually the green is yellowish or bluish, generally very
deep in color, sometimes almost black, yet there is one shade almost
exactly like the green garnet, and when perfect, except for the
adamantine colors, it is practically as brilliant. Emerald green is
rare, but when found is as beautiful as real emerald, and called
"Brazilian emerald." This is emblematic of the priesthood in Brazil,
and is much worn by priests in rings.
In Ceylon tourmaline of yellowish green occurs in abundance.
It is similar to peridot, and is known as Cingalese chrysolite. The
green in Ceylon is less deeply tinted than the Brazilian.
Blue tourmaline (indicolite) is rare. It may be light or dark,
pure indigo or tinged with green, as are specimens in the American
Museum of Natural History. In Brazil the blue are known as "Brazilian
sapphires." A few good crystals have been found at Paris,
Me., and at Goshen, near Chesterfield, Massachusetts. The discovery
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