surcharge and heaviness of sunbeams, pressed collects in the distant corner of a room-it is together till you can see them in themselves and the shadow of the summer wind. At times it not reflected. The cloud slants down the sloping is so soft, so little more than the air at hand, wood, till in a moment it is gone, and the beams that I almost fancy I can look through the solid are now focused in the depth of the narrow boundary. There is no cloud so faint; the great valley. The mirror has been tilted, and the hills are but a thought at the horizon; I think glow has shifted; in a moment more it has them there rather than see them; if I were not vanished into space, and the dream has gone thinking of them, I should scarce know there from the wood. In the arms of the wind, vast was even a haze, with so dainty a hand does bundles of mist are borne against the hill; they the atmosphere throw its covering over the massy widen and slip, and lengthen, drawing out; the downs. Riding or passing quickly, perhaps you wind works quickly with moist colours ready would not observe them; but stay among the and a wide brush laying broadly. Colour heathbells and the sketch appears in the south. comes up in the wind; the thin mist disappears, Up from the sea over the cornfields, through the drunk up in the grass and trees, and the air green boughs of the forest, along the slope, is full of blue behind the vapour. Blue sky comes a breath of wind, of honey-sweetened air, at the far horizon-rich deep blue overhead-made more delicate by the fanning of a thousand a dark-brown blue deep yonder in the gorge wings. among the trees. I feel a sense of blue colour as I face the strong breeze; the vibration and blow of its force answer to that hue, the sound of the swinging branches and the rush-rush in the grass is azure in its note; it is windblue, not the night-blue, or heaven-blue, a colour of air. To see the colour of the air, it needs great space like this-a vastness of concavity and hollow-an equal caldron of valley and plain under, to the dome of the sky over, for no vessel of earth and sky is too large for the air-colour to fill. Thirty, forty, and more miles of eye-sweep, and beyond that the limitless expanse over the sea-the thought of the eye knows no butt, shooting on with stellar penetration into the unknown. In a small space there seems a vacuum, and nothing between you and the hedge opposite, or even across the valley; in a great space the void is filled, and the wind touches the sight like a thing tangible. The air becomes itself a cloud, and is coloured-recognised as a thing suspended; something real exists between you and the horizon. Now, full of sun and now of shade, the air-cloud rests in the expanse. It is summer, and the wind-birds top the furze ; the bright stonechat, velvet-black and red and white, sits on the highest spray of the gorse, as if he were painted there. He is always in the wind on the hill, from the hail of April to August's dry glow. All the mile-long slope of the hill under me is purple-clad with heath down to the tree-filled gorge where the green boughs seem to join the purple. The cornfields and the pastures of the plain-count them one by one till the hedges and squares close together and cannot be separated. The surface of the earth melts away as if the eyes insensibly shut and grew dreamy in gazing, as the soft clouds melt and lose their outline at the horizon. But dwelling there, the glance slowly finds and fills out something that interposes its existence between us and the further space. Too shadowy for the substance of a cloud, too delicate for outline against the sky, fainter than haze, something of which the eye has consciousness, but cannot put into a word to itself. Something is there. It is the air-cloud adhering like a summer garment to the great downs by the sea. I cannot see the substance of the hills nor their exact curve along the sky; all I can see is the air that has thickened and taken to itself form about them. The atmosphere has collected as the shadow The labour of the wind: the cymbals of the aspen clashing, from the lowest to the highest bough, each leaf twirling first forwards and then backwards and swinging to and fro, a double motion. Each lifts a little and falls back like a pendulum, twisting on itself; and as it rises and sinks, strikes its fellow-leaf. Striking the side of the dark pines, the wind changes their colour and turns them paler. The oak leaves slide one over the other, hand above hand, laying shadow upon shadow on the white road. In the vast net of the wide elm-tops, the drifting shadow of the cloud which the wind brings is caught for a moment. Pushing aside the stiff ranks of the wheat with both arms, the air reaches the sun-parched earth. It walks among the mowing-grass like a farmer feeling the crop with his hand one side, and opening it with his walkingstick the other. It rolls the wavelets carelessly as marbles to the shore; the red cattle redden the pool and stand in their own colour. The green caterpillar swings as he spins his thread and lengthens his cable to the tide of air, descending from the tree; before he can slip it, the whitethroat takes him. With a thrust, the wind hurls the swallow, or the still grander traverser of air, the swift, fifty miles faster on his way; it ruffles back the black velvet of the creepy mole peeping forth from his burrow. Apple-bloom and crab-apple bloom have been blown long since athwart the furrows over the orchard wall; May petals and June roses scattered; the pollen and the seeds of the meadow-grasses thrown on the threshing-floor of mother-earth in basketfuls. Thistle down and dandelion down, the brown down of the goat's-beard; by-and-by the keys of the sycamores twirling aslant-the wind carries them all on its back, gossamer web and great heron's vanes-the same weight to the wind; the drops of the waterfall blown aside sprinkle the bright green ferns. The voice of the cuckoo in his season travels drowsily on the zephyr, and the note comes to the most distant hill, and deep into the deepest wood. The light and fire of summer are made beautiful by the air, without whose breath the glorious summer were all spoiled. Thick are the hawthorn leaves, many deep on the spray; and beneath them there is a twisted and intertangled winding in and out of boughs, such as no curious ironwork of ancient artist could equal; through the leaves and metal-work of boughs the soft west wind wanders at its ease. Wild wasp and tutored Aug. 7, 1886.] us, and the brown grass stalks threaten to catch flame in the field. The grain of wheat that was full of juice dries hard in the ears, and water is no more good for thirst. There is not a cloud in the sky; but at night there is heavy rain, and the flowers are beaten down. There is a thunder-wind that blows at intervals when great clouds are visibly gathering over the hayfield. It is almost a calm; but from time to time a breath comes, and a low mournful cry sounds in the hollow farmhouse-the windows and doors are to make hasty help in the hay ere the storm-a mournful cry in the hollow house, as unhappy a note as if it were soaked February. bee sing sideways on their course as the breeze fills their vanes; with broad coloured sails boomed out, drifts the butterfly alee. Beside a browncoated stone in the shadowed stream, a brown trout watches for the puffs that slay the Mayflies. Their ephemeral wings were made for a more exquisite life; they endure but one sun; they bear not the touch of the water; they die like a dream dropping into the river. To the amethyst in the deep ditch the wind comes; no petal so hidden under green it cannot find; to the blue hill-flower up by the sky; it lifts the guilty open, and the men and women have gone out head of the passionate poppy that has sinned in the sun for love. Sweet is the rain the wind brings to the wallflower browned in the heat, a-dry on the crumbling stone. Pleasant the sunbeams to the marigold when the wind has carried the rain away and his sun-disc glows on the bank. Acres of perfume come on the wind from the black and white of the bean-field; the firs fill the air by the copse with perfume. I know nothing to which the wind has not some happy use. Is there a grain of dust so small the wind shall not find it out? Ground in the mill-wheel of the centuries, the iron of the distant mountain floats like gossamer, and is drunk up as dew by leaf and living lung. A thousand miles of cloud go by from morn till night, passing overhead without a sound; the immense packs, a mile square, succeed to each other, side by side, laid parallel, book-shape, coming up from the horizon and widening as they approach. From morn till night the silent footfalls of the ponderous vapours travel overhead, no sound, no creaking of the wheels and rattling of the chains; it is calm at the earth, but the wind labours without an effort above, with such ease, with such power. Gray smoke hangs on the hillside where the couchheaps are piled, a cumulus of smoke; the wind comes, and it draws its length along like the genii from the earthen pot; there leaps up a great red flame shaking its head; it shines in the bright sunlight; you can see it across the valley. A perfect summer day with a strong south wind a cloudless blue sky blown pale, a summer sun blown cool, deep draughts of refreshing air to man and horse, clear definition of red-tile roof and conical oast, perfect colour of soft ash-green trees. In the evening, fourteen black swifts rushing together through the upper atmosphere with shrill cries, sometimes aside and on the tip of one wing, with a whirl descending, a black trail, to the tiled ridge they dwell in. Fine weather after this. A swooning August day, with a hot east wind, from which there is no escape, which gives no air to the chest-you breathe and are not satisfied with the inspiration; it does not fill; there is no life in the killed atmosphere. It is a vacuum of heat, and yet the strong hot wind bends the trees, and the tall firs wrestle with it as they did with Sinis, the Pine-bender, bowed down and rebounding, as if they would whirl their cones away like a catapult. Masses of air are moving by, and yet there is none to breathe. No escape in the shadow of hedge or wood, or in the darkened room; darkness excludes the heat that comes with light, but the heat of the oven-wind cannot be shut out. Some monstrous dragon of the Chinese sky pants his fiery breath upon In April, six miles away in the valley, a vast cloud came down with swan-shot of hail, black as blackest smoke, overwhelming house and wood, all gone and mixed with the sky, and behind the mass there followed a white cloud sunlit dragging along the ground, like a cumulus fallen to the earth. At sunset, the sky cleared, and under the glowing rim of the sun, a golden wind drove the host of vapour before it, scattering it to the right and left. Large pieces caught and tore themselves in the trees of the forest, and one curved fragment hurled from the ridge, fell in the narrow coomb, lit up as it came down with golden sunset rays, standing out bright against the shadowed wood. Down it came slowly, as it were with outstretched arms, loth to fall, carrying the coloured light of the sky to the very surface of the earth. IN ALL SHADES. AUTHOR OF 'BABYLON,' 'STRANGE STORIES, ETC. ETC. CHAPTER XXXIX. HALF-WAY down to the blazing trash-houses, Mr Dupuy and his little band of black allies, all armed only with the sticks they had hastily seized from the stand in the piazza, came on a sudden face to face with the wild and frantic mob of half-tipsy rioters. 'Halt!' Mr Dupuy called out in a cool and unmoved tone of command to the reckless insurgents, as they marched on in irregular order, brandishing their cutlasses wildly in the flickering firelight. You blackguards, what are you doing here, and what do you mean by firing and burning my trashhouses?' By the ruddy light of the lurid blaze behind him, Louis Delgado recognised at once the familiar face of his dearest enemy. 'Me fren's,' he shrieked, in a loud outburst of gratified vindictiveness, 'dis is him-dis is him-dis de buckra Dupuy we come to kill now! De Lard has delibbered him into our hands witout so much as gib us de trouble ob go an' attack him.' But before even Delgado could bring down with savage joy his uplifted weapon on his hated enemy's bare head, Mr Dupuy had stepped boldly and energetically forward, and catching the wiry African by his outstretched arm, had cried aloud in his coolest and most deliberate accents: 'Louis Delgado, put down your cutlass. As a magistrate for this island, I arrest you for riot.' His resolute boldness was not without its due effect. For just the swing of a pendulum there was a profound silence, and that great mob of strangely beraged and rum-maddened negroes held its breath irresolutely, doubting in its own six hundred vacillating souls which of the two things rather to do-whether to yield as usual to the accustomed authority of that one bold and solitary white man, the accredited mouthpiece of law and order, or else to rush forward madly and hack him then and there into a thousand pieces with African ferocity. So instinctive in the West Indian negro's nature is the hereditary respect for European blood, that even though they had come there for the very purpose of massacring and mutilating the defenceless buckra, they stood appalled, now the actual crisis had fairly arrived, at the bare idea of venturing to dispute the question openly with the one lone and unarmed white man. But Louis Delgado, African born that he was, had no such lingering West Indian prejudices. Disengaging his sinewy captive arm from Mr Dupuy's flabby grasp with a sudden jerk, he lifted his cutlass once more high into the air, and held it, glittering, for the twinkling of an eye, above the old man's defenceless head. One moment, Uncle 'Zekiel saw it gleam fearfully in the red glare of the burning trash-houses; the next, it had fallen on Mr Dupuy's shoulder, and the blood was spurting out in crimson splashes over his white tie and open shirt-front, in which he had risen but a few minutes before so unsuspectingly from his own dinner-table. The old planter reeled terribly before the violent force of that staggering blow, but kept his face still turned bravely with undiminished courage toward the exultant enemy. At the sight of the gushing blood, however the proud buckra blood, that shows so visibly on the delicate white European skin-the negroes behind set up a loud and horrid peal of unearthly laughter, and rushed forward, all their hesitation flung away at once, closing round him in a thickly packed body, each eager not to lose his own share in the delightful excitement of hacking him to pieces. A dozen cutlasses gleamed aloft at once in the bare black arms, and a dozen more blows were aimed at the wounded man fiercely by as many hideous, grinning rioters. Uncle 'Zekiel and the household negroes, oblivious and almost unconscious of themselves, as domestic servants of their race always are in the presence of danger for their master or his family, pressed around the reeling white man in a serried ring, and with their sticks and arms, a frail barrier, strove manfully to resist the fierce onslaught of the yelling and leaping plantation negroes. In spite of what Mr Dupuy had just been saying about the negroes being all alike cowards, the petty handful of faithful blacks, forming a close and firm semicircle in front of their wounded master, fought like wild beasts at bay with hands and arms, and legs and teeth, and sticks and elbows, opposing stoutly, by fair means and foul, the ever-pressing sea of wild rioters. As they fought, they kept yielding slowly but cautiously before the steady pressure; and Mr Dupuy, reeling and staggering he knew not how, but with his face kept ever, like a fighting Dupuy, turned dauntlessly toward the surging enemy, retreated slowly backward step by step in the direction of his own piazza. Just as he reached the bottom of the steps, Uncle 'Zekiel meanwhile shielding and protecting him manfully with his portly person, a woman rushed forth from the mass of the rioters, and with hideous shrieks of 'Hallelujah, hallelujah !' hacked him once more with her blunt cutlass upon the ribs and body. Mr Dupuy, faint and feeble from loss of blood, but still cool and collected as ever, groped his way ever backward up the steps, in a blind, reeling, failing fashion, and stood at last at bay in the doorway of the piazza, with his faithful bodyguard, wounded and bleeding freely like himself, still closing resolutely around him. "This will do, 'Zekiel,' he gasped out incoherently, as he reached the top landing. In the pass of the doorway. Stop them easily. Fire rouse the military. Hold the house for half an hour-help from the governor. Quick, quick! give me the pistol.' Even as he spoke, a small white hand, delicate and bloodless, appearing suddenly from the room behind him, placed his little revolver, cocked and loaded, between the trembling fingers of his left hand, for the right lay already hacked and useless, hanging idly by his side in limp helplessness. Nora, my dear,' the old man sobbed out in a half-inarticulate gurgling voice, 'go back-go back this moment to the boudoir. Back garden; slip away quietly-no place for you, Orange Grove, this evening. Slight trouble with the plantation blacks. Quell the rioters.-Close up, Zekiel.-Close up, Dick, Thomas, Jo, Robert, Emilius, Mark Antony!' And with a quivering hand, standing there alone in the narrow doorway, while the mob below swarmed and pressed up the piazza steps in wild confusion, the wounded planter fired the revolver, with no definite aim, blank into the surging midst of the mob, and let his left hand drop as he did so, white and fainting by his side, with his vain endeavour. The bullet had hit one of the negro women full in the thigh, and it only served still further to madden and enrage the clamouring mob, now frantically thirsty for the buckra blood. 'Him wounded Hannah-him wounded Hannah!' the negroes yelled in their buzzing indignation; and at the word, they rushed forward once more with mad gesticulations, those behind pushing those in front against the weak yielding wall of Orange Grove servants, and all menacing horribly with their blood-reddened cutlasses, as they shrieked aloud frantically: 'Kill him-kill him!' The servants still held firm with undaunted courage, and rallied bravely round their tottering master; but the onslaught was now far too fierce for them, and one by one they were thrust back helpless by the raging mob, who nevertheless abstained so far as possible from hurting any one of them, aiming all their blows directly at the detested white man himself alone. If by chance at any moment a cutlass came down unintentionally upon the broad backs of the negro defenders, a cry arose at once from the women in the rear of Doan't hit him-doan't hit him. Him me brudder. Colour for colour! Kill de buckra! Hallelujah!' Journal And all this time, Nora Dupuy looked on from behind, holding her bloodless hands clasped downward in mute agony, not so much afraid as expectant, with Aunt Clemmy and the womenservants holding her and comforting her with well-meant negro consolation, under the heavy mahogany arch of the dining-room doorway. At last, Delgado, standing now on the most step, and half within the area of the piazza, aimed one terrible slashing cut at the old planter, as he stood supporting himself feebly by a piece of the woodwork, and hacked him down, a heavy mass, upon the ground before them with a wild African cry of vengeance. The poor old man fell, insensible, in a little pool of his own blood; and the Orange Grove negroes, giving way finally before the irresistible press of their overwhelming opponents, left him there alone, surrounded on every side by the frantic mob of enraged insurgents. Nora, clasping her hands tighter than ever, and immovable as a statue, stood there still, without uttering a cry or speaking a word-as cold and white and motionless as marble. hitherto supposed to be of very great value, and which had been sold by an illustrious person in ignorance of the fact. 'What is paste?' asked a London magistrate, in the course of his examination into a charge of selling imitation stones for real ones. 'Paste, sir,' replied the witness, 'means a mixture of violin top-glass and borax ;' from which, as we have been informed, the closest imitations of diamonds and other precious stones can be made (see Artificial Jewels,' Chambers's Journal, Nov. 15, 1884). Visitors to Paris who have feasted their eyes on the madeup gems so lavishly displayed in the jewellers' windows of the Rue de la Paix and the PalaisRoyal, feel surprised when they are told that four-fifths of the glittering baubles are composed of paste, and are of little value as compared with real gems. It used to be said that most of the jewelry shown in the Palais-Royal was manufactured for use on the stage; but the actresses of to-day, unless obliged to wear paste, will, when they can afford it, adorn their persons with none but real gems. The names of several artists might easily be given who are reputed to be passing rich in diamonds and rubies, and who are possessed besides of pearls of great price. Some actresses, indeed, seem to draw audiences nowadays as much by the aid of their jewels as their talents. When a female star visits the provinces, pains are frequently taken to proclaim the number and value of her gems and jewels. then, wears the paste diamonds and other imitation gems which are manufactured? To this question, an answer of rather a startling kind has more than once been given, and one of the latest may here be noted. A gentleman who was deeply involved in the pursuits of the turf requiring a considerable sum of money to pay his debts of honour, stole his wife's jewels in order to pawn them. To his consternation, the pawnbroker refused to look at them. 'Why?' was feverishly asked. 'Because they are paste.'-'Paste! My wife's jewels paste?''Yes. I supplied her with them. The originals are in my safe; I advanced thirteen hundred pounds upon them.' Unfortunately, the gentleman's wife was as great a gambler as her husband, and she had been obliged to pawn her diamonds to meet her own liabilities. 'Hack him to pieces!' 'Him doan't dead yet!' 'Him only faintin'!' 'Burn him-burn him!' A chorus of cries rose incoherently from the six hundred lips of the victorious negroes. And as they shouted, they mangled and mutilated the old man's body with their blunt cutlasses in a way perfectly hideous to look at; the women especially crowding round to do their best at kicking and insulting their fallen enemy. "Tank de Lard-tank de Lard!' Delgado, now drunk with blood, shouted out fiercely to his frenzied followers. We done killed de ole man. Now we gwine to kill de missy!' Who, JEWEL AND GEM ROGUERIES. THAT old saying which tells us there are 'tricks in all trades,' would appear from recent exposures and explanations to be almost more applicable to jewellers than to other traders; and if only one half of the misdemeanours with which they are charged be true, they deserve to be placed in the front rank of trade tricksters. There are, however, jewellers and jewellers, and although, happily, as a class they are above suspicion, yet, as our courts of justice occasionally reveal, The ingenuity of persons who 'get up' precious there are also not a few black-sheep in the flock stones and mock-pearls for 'the trade' has been -men who do not scruple to deal in 'doublets' often commented upon and frequently censured. and paste, and who pass off gems and jewels A London lapidary who works in the groove as genuine, that they know to be either alto- indicated was called upon, a few months ago, in gether false, or to possess some hidden flaw a court of law to explain his mode of procedure. sufficient greatly to lessen their value. Every 'I make all my imitations out of real stones,' now and then we find in the newspapers a was his reply to the judge. On being asked paragraph or longer article concerning mystery to be more explicit, he said: 'Perhaps I possess gold, forged gems,' or 'false jewels.' Recent some pale stones which are of small value: examples of this kind of news have appeared these I split by the aid of my tools; then introto the effect that an important discovery had been made regarding the crown of a foreign potentate, as well as the diamond necklace of a lady of rank, many of the gems in the latter article being made of paste; whilst the diadem of the king is announced to be little better than a theatrical bauble, most of the real stones having been extracted and their places filled with imitation ones. Another announcement of the kind calls attention to the fact of several imitation stones having been found in a jewelled collar ducing a deeper tone of colour, I join them together again, having considerably increased their saleable value.' In this manner the colours of many stones are said to be intensified, such as emeralds, sapphires, amethysts, and others. Diamonds are constantly utilised by being split, each half of a gem perhaps doing duty on a paste foundation on which it has been carefully mounted. A stone which may be of the value of ten pounds having been split at little cost, is carefully mounted, and becomes transformed into two gems, each affirmed to be worth that sum. It requires a clever expert to detect such frauds when they are cleverly executed, or to discover that the 'fire' imparted to certain stones that would otherwise be dull of hue and greatly deficient in sparkle, is conferred by so simple an expedient as a backing of tinfoil. The invention of what are called 'doublets' in diamond-dealing can be traced back for centuries. One mode of getting up false stones has been described by Jerome Cardan, who has published in detail the method of the inventor, one Zocolino. This person's way of working was to procure a thin flake of a very inferior and cheap example of the stone he desired to 'improve,' choosing those which had little colour, and might in consequence be procured at a nominal price. As a bottom for his 'make-up' he took a bit of crystal which he had shaped to his purpose; covering this with a transparent glue with which he had mixed the necessary colouring material, so as to be like the finest specimen of the gem he intended to forge, he carefully fixed on the flake of stone, and concealed the joining of the two so deftly by careful setting as to make purchasers fancy that his gems were not only genuine, but really finer than those of other jewellers. For a time Zocolino flourished, and was enabled by means of his cunning workmanship to deceive the cleverest lapidaries; but detection came at last, and put an end to his fraudulent practices in gem-making. It may be mentioned as a warning to travellers that the Singhalese at Colombo are experts in such frauds, and frequently persuade persons to purchase cleverly set up doublets, or pieces of rock-crystal cut and polished. Doublets in many cases, especially when both parts are really diamonds, are somewhat difficult to detect even by men who have had great experience in the gem and jewel trades. Before leaving the diamond, we may mention another kind of fraud connected with it. Often, when these gems have been set in a cluster, it has been found on examination that at least one of the stones is made of paste, or is perhaps a doublet. A rather curious story went the round of the press some years ago, when, on the death of a lady of title, it was found that more than one-third of the family diamonds were composed of false stones. These imitations had been so beautifully executed that none but the cleverest dealers were able to detect them; while in the case of some of the stones, it was not till their specific gravity had been tested that a decision could be arrived at. It has been found on examination, we believe, that necklaces of so-called real diamonds have often contained twenty per cent. of doublets or other stones of questionable quality. Respectable dealers in jewelry maintain that it is the public who are to blame for the production of false jewels, knowing well enough that genuine gems could not be given at the prices offered for them. Retail jewellers are not seldom deceived themselves, not being, perhaps, so well versed in the technical knowledge incidental to their trade as they ought to be. Tradesmen of repute, however, are exceedingly careful in their selection of stock, no gem being offered for sale unless it is known to be genuine. Many gems are really gems of a kind, although not the gems they are pretended to be, but in all probability are composed of pieces of quartz 'got up' for the market, quartz being selected as being able to stand the test of the file, which glass cannot do. There are varieties of topaz and other stones which are as hard as the diamond; and being entirely colourless, they are often cut and polished and successfully palmed off as diamonds. This colourless gem material is costly in consequence of the use to which it can be turned. Recipes for the production of imitation stones have been often given; the following is the formula for a ruby: five hundred parts of strass, twenty of glass of antimony, a half each of purple of Cassius and of gold. Strass is a specially manufactured kind of glass which has been long used in connection with the fabrication of gems; it usually contains a much larger percentage of oxide of lead than the commoner sorts of glass. Aventurine is another kind of gem glass, which is chiefly manufactured in Venice, and brings a high price. The best thing is a quartz of varying shades of colour, which is much prized. One of the scarcer varieties is known as sunstone, and is much sought after, being valuable for such purposes as have been referred to. Attempts by chemists to produce diamonds have, commercially speaking, usually resulted in failure. The most successful of the early experiments tried in the way of diamond production was that worked out by Gannal, a Frenchman, who in the year 1828 succeeded in producing a substance that was affirmed by a practical jeweller of great repute to be a diamond; but after much controversy, the opinion came to be ultimately entertained that even Gannal had failed. Another famous Frenchman, M. Desprets, made several endeavours in the same direction with partial success; he produced matter at all events with which it was found to be possible to cut and polish the harder gems. A Monsieur de Chaud Courtois has also entered upon various experiments with a view to the production of 'real' diamonds, but, so far as we know, without having achieved success. Mr MacTier's experiments at the St Rollox chemical works in Glasgow have been so recently discussed as not to require farther reference. The so-called 'Scottish Jewelry,' made from cairngorms, cinnamon stone, &c., is largely manufactured in Germany, where most of the stones required are quite plentiful. It is common enough to impose the cairngorm on ignorant purchasers as Brazilian or Mexican topaz. Edinburgh lapidaries are able to prepare and mount the cairngorm and pebbles of Scotland with taste and skill. Crystals of smoky quartz are found in every part of the globe, and can be so skilfully dealt with by lapidaries and experts as to be made deeper or lighter in colour as may be demanded. Each manipulator is of course careful to preserve his particular mode of procedure secret from his fellows; and some of them are very clever in their various manipulations of Scottish stones, which can be set with fine effect in brooches, snuff-mulls, dirks, and powder-horns. 'Mock-pearls' are the subject of frequent discussion. The wonderful lustre and exquisite polish of the real gem of the sea have been more than once imitated with almost the power of |