PDF BOOK Diamonds and precious stones, a popular account of gems.

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By FANCHON SANFORD. 1874

PREFACE.

It would be easy for any one who had sufficiently prepared
himself by previous study to write a purely scientific
work on the subject of precious stones; but this is not
the intention of the present writer, who aims at interesting
a wider class of readers than a work of the kind indicated
would reach.

In addition to the strictly scientific information to be
given regarding precious stones, there are connected with
them a great many facts not less interesting, and equally
important for the public to know. To these we have
devoted several sections of the following work.

In our times precious stones are used almost exclusively
for the purpose of ornament, but in former
times the case was very different. By reference to the
authors of antiquity, as well as to those of the middle
ages and the Renaissance, we have shown the important
part that they then played, and what ideas prevailed
regarding them.

From the thousands of fables and superstitions of
which precious stones have been the subject, we have
selected a certain number. In doing so we have disregarded
those calculated only to interest the curious,
and have chosen such as were likely to instruct and
enlighten.

In Parts iv. and v. it was necessary to introduce some
of the elements of crystallography, without which those
two important chapters would have lost a great part of
their value. We have treated the subject, however, as
briefly as possible, but, at the same time, in a strictly
scientific manner. To attempt to popularize science, by
stripping it, as is so often done, of that which constitutes
its very essence, is not to popularize, but to disfigure and
travesty it.

The part devoted to counterfeit precious stones will
not be one of the least useful. The facts which it contains
will carry their own teaching with them, and of
this the purchasers of precious stones will know how
to avail themselves.

In another part the methods are explained, by means
of which modern savants have succeeded in producing
the majority of the precious stones. These methods,
and the remarkable results obtained by the employment
of them, have hitherto remained locked up in collections
of scientific papers, or in special treatises. We are glad
to have had the opportunity of first making them known
to the public at large.

The illustrations interspersed through the book all reproduce
as accurately as possible by engraving the objects they profess
to represent, and none of them are fancy sketches.
The utmost care has been bestowed on
this department; for, if the engraver's art is one of the
most powerful means of spreading knowledge, it can only
be so by the exact reproduction of nature.

Lastly, we have constantly endeavoured to arrange
facts according to their natural relations, so as, by the
mere exposition, to exhibit, in a succinct form, a notable
stage in the development of the human mind, both from
an intellectual and a scientific point of view.

LOUIS DIEULAFAIT.

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http://www.archive.org/details/diamondsprecious01dieu