Democratic Sentinel, Volume 12, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1889 — CAT’S-EYE STONES. [ARTICLE]

CAT’S-EYE STONES.

Something' About These Stones and How They Came Into Fashion. That the Duke of Connaught gave his bride a cat’s-eye ring as an engagement token was enough to make the stone sash ionable and to increase its value greatly. The demand soon extended to Ceylon, where the true chrysoberyl cat’s-eye is found, and stimulated the search for it there. In the chrysoberyl cat’s-eye the effect is the result' of a twining of the crystal, or of a deposit between its crystalline layers of other minerals in microscopic inclusions. If the stone be cut across these layers en cabochon or carbuncle cut, as it is called, a bright line of light will be condensed on the dome like top of the stone. In the search for these chrysoberyl cat’s-eyes there have been found an endless series of chrysoberyls of deep golden, light yellow, yellow green, sage green, dark green, yellowish brown, and other tints. They are superb gems, weighing from one to one hundred carats each, ranking next to the sapphire in hardness. They gave a great surprise to the gemdealers, for it was found that the darker leaf green or olive green stones possessed the wonderful dichroitic property of changing to columbine red by artifical light, the green being entirely subdued and the red predominating, and in fact were alexandrites, a gem which had formerly been found only in Siberia, and even there of poor quality though in large crystals, a perfect gem of even one carate being a great rarity. Here, however, fine gems rarely under four carats were found, and an exceptionable one weighed sixty seven carats. They can be numbered among the most remarkable of known gems, Strange to say, among these alexandrites a few have been found which combine the characteristics of the cat’s-eye and the ilexandrite and are in reality cat’s-eyes.

Miss Lexington (of Kentucky) Oh, what a perfectly enchanting place this is, obe sure! We have a lake very similar o it in Kentucky. Huntington (of New York, astounded) -What, of water! The best Sewing Machine in the market is the Eldbedge. Call at the residence of Mrs. J. W. McEwen, Agent, .Rensselaer, Ind The surest evidence of the efficiency of Mr. and Mrs. Brown as instructors in Art is the continual increase in the nptnber of pupils.