Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 130, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 May 1913 — MOST FICKLE OF ALL GEMS [ARTICLE]

MOST FICKLE OF ALL GEMS

Opals Readily Affected By Changes of Temperature, and This Has Brought Them 111 Favor. The superstition which causes people to regard opals with awe as the cause of 111 luck, and even death, is due to a peculiar observation made many years ago. Opals were considerably in use in Venice during the plague and it was noticed there in the hospitals that before death the stone would sometimes brighten upon the victim’s finger. It never seemed to occur to the people that the illness could produce a glow of color. They took it for granted that the stone occasioned the illness. As a matter of fact, opals are affected by heat, even by that of the hand, and the fever, being at its height just before death, caused the colors to shine with unwonted clearness. This confirmed the superstition, and to this day there are sane and ablebodied people who believe that a chip of this stone in the house can cause calamities. Probably another reason for the distrust excited In opals is the fact that they change and lose their color. That is due to the softness and porousness of the material, and Its capacity both for absorbing water and of parting with what it has, one of which tends to make it dull and the other chalky and opaque. They have been known to be carefully cut and laid away, and upon opening the paper had crumbled Into dust within a few weeks. A species of opal known as the hydrophane, found in small quantities lately In Colorado, has wonderful powers of absorption. In Its usual state It Is of a yellowish, waxy tint, but when water is dropped upon it the tint phases slowly away, and from being translucent It becomes transparent. On exposure to the air the water evaporates In an hour, leaving the stone as it was before.