Jewelry Lovers

Certainly, it would be interesting for laymen, who probably in their earliest childhood first made acquaintance in fairytales with the magic world of gemstones, to study the role of these self-same stones in the folklore of countries, peoples, and times. However, it was intentional to keep the rational and purely scientific side of gemstones as seen from a gemologist’s viewpoint in the foreground, so that, for once, fact-hungry laymen might be given comprehensible answers to such burning questions as, “What is a gemstone?”; “Why is it so valuable?”; “What causes its beautiful colors?”; “Where and how was it actually formed and how is it found today?” In contrast to most on gemstones this one was also designed from the outset to describe more fully by means of both text and illustrations the evolution and mining of the most beautiful minerals. It is precisely the long history of development—from the enormous forces of the earth, through the indescribable toil and sweat involved in their recovery, to the sensitive completion on the cutting lap—which has wrought a gemstone into a most costly gift of Nature; it is one which induces in the wearer so much marveling awe of the glittering gemstone, which in fulfillment of its destiny is at last mounted as an enchanting jewel. On exactly this ground, too, it is false and misleading to call artificial or synthetic stones gemstones, for those are products manufactured in laboratories by the hand of man,completely without rarity or natural origin. Moreover, that ghastly term “semi precious stone” is a linguistic monstrosity which should be avoided, because it results inconsiderable harm to the popularity of the stone so described. Today a distinction is made between “gemstones” and “ornamental stones,” whereby in general the former is applied to transparent gems and the latter to the opaque ones.

Like flowers, we saw gemstones, Sparkling in the brilliance of light; Brought forth by Nature as crystals, Chosen by man as jewels.

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