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easoning mutations of taste in these matters." And that was fifty
years ago!
Seldom called for, and its beauty unacknowledged when falling
one's way, it yet is of far less common occurrence than the ruby
or sapphire, with which it was so long associated, and in whose
company it is still found among the river gravels of Ceylon.
Where are the mother rocks of these wonderful Cingalese pebbles,
broken from their moorings and worn smooth by the action of
the swift, sudden, tropical streams which have carried them far?
Ceylon is a small country, open in every part to the traveler. Has
the original mountain been swallowed up in some volcanic convulsion,
or have the ancient mines, like those of chrysolite in the Red
Sea, emerald in Egypt, diamond in India, turquoise in New Mexico,
been neglected, over run with armies or vegetation, and finally for-
gotten ?
The hyacinth variety of zircon, or the deep yellow jacinth, is
the guardian angel's talismanic gem for September.