Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 December 1881 — Jewelry Fashions. [ARTICLE]

Jewelry Fashions.

Hsw York Evening Post. The changes in the fashions of jewelry are in nothing more striking than in Jems and their settings. Fashionable women have been known to have

times in one year.aimply to gratify the love of •eveire. 3he price of diamonds as already noted In the Evening Poet, has lately advanced some 26 per cent in oonsequenoe of the '‘corner effected in the South Africa diamond field by a company of English capitalists”. There is now matrons' fancy for colored atones and blue diamonds, which a few yean ago were rated as off-color and inferior to the white, have become especial favorites. If a pore white diamond is worth tl7t a carat, a bine diamond of the same quality will brings2so a carat The sapphire is also in great demand, its value having risen 160 per cent in the last year, and for fine rubles,of the admired “pigeon’s blood” color only fancy prices can be quoted. The topaz and the yellow diamonds are exceptions to the popularity of colored gems, though lemon-tinted diamonds are not eo lightly esteemed as stones of other shades in yellow. All emeralds are rising in value, including ths hiddenite, or American emerald, lately found' in Nortn Carolina, for which a prominent firm tn this city will readily pay 6100 a carat This stone is said to be fully equal m quality to the finest emeralds imported. The turquoise is another object of the fondness for colors, but, like all colored Stones, it can be imitated so closely that it is difficult even for experts to distinguish the false from the true wheu in settings. Pearls are now rising In value, because of a combination in this city to regulate their price. We are no longer dependent upon Europe for semi-precious stones, such as garnets, which are found in great quantities in our Western Territories. Though of emaU-sise, they are of excellent quality, and enter largely into the manufacture ot middle-class ornaments