Jewels Rich And Rare

Lady Gttixness is said to have given an order for a diamond necklace which it will tako several years to make owing to the present scarcity of stones of the first water. The design is superb, and the oost will be about $125,000. The diamond and pearl necklace worn on state occasions by Mrs. Cornelius Vandorbilt has excited the greatest wonder and admiration. The striking feature of this necklace is that the diamonds are pieroed through the center and are strung aiternately with the pearls. It is said that it required many weeks of patiënt labor to pierce each stone. Mrs. Lei.ajíd Staxfoiíd has the most valuable collection of diamonds in the world except the crown jewels of Eussia and Great Britain. One of her necklaces is worth $000.000 and her entire collection is valued at 2,000,000. The rarest gems from the caskots of the exQueen Isabella, of Spain, and the exEmpress Eugenie are now owned by Mrs. Stanford. One of the jewols owned by Mrs. Eobert Johnson, of San Francisco, is a necklace of diainonds that form an exact counterfeit of a snake. It is cohiposed of solitaires Bet in illuminated gold, the plates of which, overlapping each other like those in chain armor, render the necklace perfectly plialfla and increase the resemblance to the snakelike sinuosity. The precious gems with which Mrs. Mackay decks herself are about as well known in Paris and London as she is. Among them is a flawless sapphire nearly half an inch in diameter, which ia said to have cost 8185,000; the finesj emerald known to exist, for which a fabulous price was paid; an almosi priceless set of rose-pink coral jewelry and a pair of diamond solitaires valued at $400,000.