Rubies May Be Cheap

"A man carne in here the otlier morning and took out a magnificent stone, which he put on the counter and asked me what I thought of it. Well, I thought it was a ruby worth abuut $700 or $800. The color was deep pigeon's blood, and while apiagniiier ehowed little spots like bubbles in the stone, they didn't interfere with iis traneparency or brightness. " 'Whafs it woith ?' said I. " 'Slxty dollars a caret,' said he. I looked at him in amazement. " 'Then it's paste," Kaiil I. " 'Xot,a bit of it,' said he. I tested it lor liardnees and it iras all rlght. Then the man explalned that, while it was a real ruby, it was produced liy artificial means. A French cheinits añade it. Very few of these stones have tome to this country, so far, and in most of those that have, there was jio material that eould be used for jeivelry the c-rystals were so small This puts a different phase on the business." Artificial crystallization of alumina was accomplished several years ago. The color in the resulting mineral was Buperb, but the individual crystals wore éo minute that a microscope was needed to dlstinguish their angles. They were unlted by their bases to a ernst of amorphous alumn.i. .-ind sparkled like tiny red stars whenever the light played ncrosg them. The natural ruby doubt loss ook years, and very likely, centuries to form. The ohemical ruby, which is anade in a. few -tt-ppL-s. in lm nat pure alumina.