Webmaster’s Note: We
are pleased to reprint the reminiscences of George Frederick
Kunz (1856–1932), arguably the greatest gemologist
the world has ever seen. At age 23, Kunz was appointed
vice-president of the famous New York City jeweler, Tiffany & Co.,
a position he held for much of his life. But he is best
remembered for his prolific writings on precious stones.
Perhaps there is no greater testament to his work than
the fact that many of his books have been reprinted and
all remain in high demand in the collector market. Such
works include Gems and Precious Stones of North America, The
Curious Lore of Precious Stones, Magic of Jewels
and Charms, Rings for the Finger, Book of the Pearl and Ivory
and the Elephant.
According
to mineral dealer, Lawrence Conklin,
late in his life, Kunz granted a
series of interviews to a reporter
which appeared “as told to Marie
Beynon Ray” in The Saturday Evening
Post, as follows:
These interviews, long out-of-print and practically impossible to acquire in their original format, are reprinted here verbatim, with the original illustrations. For those readers who wish to delve further into the Kunz oeuvre, see Lawrence Conklin’s The Curious Lore of George Frederick Kunz. In our opinion, the Kunz reminiscences are among the most readable and interesting in the realm of gemological literature. After having read them, we trust you will feel likewise.Part 1. Reprinted from the Saturday Evening Post, November 26, 1927, pp. 6–7, 85–86, 91.
To read Part 2 of this article, click here
THE GREAT collections of gems are perhaps even more interesting in the making than in the seeing or the owning. At any rate, I should much rather be in possession of the experiences, adventures, travels and friendships collected while I was gathering what are often spoken of as the greatest gem collections of our time than of the gems themselves. I have made in all some dozen collections, including the J. Pierpont Morgan Collection, which is considered the finest in the world; the Chicago Exposition Collection, now in the Field Museum in Chicago, surpassed only by the Morgan Collection; and the Dr. L.T. Chamberlain Collection. Not the least interesting part of my work were the additions made to other men’s collections as, for instance, Mr. Clarence S. Bement’s, Mr. Heber R. Bishop’s collection of jade; Colonel Roebling’s collection, and many others.
And yet I, too, have set out in quest of gems, have known the thrill of pursuit and capture and, above all, the thoroughly satisfying experience of adding one rare gem to another in the ever-growing collections that even Time perhaps will not destroy.
A private collector is, of course, in a somewhat different position from mine. On the whole, things come more naturally to me, and I would not compare my adventures in search of treasure with those of men like Mr. Bishop, for example, who, not having agents all over the world at their beck and call, set forth themselves, not once but many times, to the far corners of the earth in search of some coveted bit – always, at that moment, the most coveted bit in their entire collection – and experience veritable Arabian Nights’ adventures by the way. And yet I, too, have set out in quest of gems, have known the thrill of pursuit and capture and, above all, the thoroughly satisfying experience of adding one rare gem to another in the ever-growing collections that even Time perhaps will not destroy.
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In a Small Boy’s Pockets?
The beginning of this lifelong devotion to gems was in my childhood.
You are to imagine one of America’s first meek attempts at
a Coney Island – the tinny tempo of The Blue Danube being
suffocated by a German band; little shrieks as hooped skirts billow
upward and women’s feet clear the floor, bonnets askew, faces
blazing; beyond the rough dance floor, tables on which mugs of
foaming beer beat time to the music; and in the green and still
beautiful distance, raucous yells from a ball field and the criers
of those poisonously brilliant ices known as “hokeypokey,
penny a lick; the more you eat the more you kick” – such
were the Elysian Fields on the plains of Hoboken in the late 1860’s.
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On
the outskirts of the crowd pauses for a brief moment a
small boy whose pockets bulge with lumpy mysteries. Even
the ball game claims but a perfunctory glance and he passes
along, on sterner business bent. Arrived at a secluded
spot, he kneels and empties the contents of his pockets
on the ground, sorting them carefully, muttering their
names and an occasional affectionate word: “Good old
quartz! Oh, you beauty! Fine bit of ore.” A litter
of stones – not stones whose smoothness and roundness
made them pleasant to the touch, not seashore pebbles picked
for their glistening beauty, not small hard stones to fit
neatly into the deadly sling shot. No, these delectable
bits of shale and rock would have interested no other small
boy, and no adult of his acquaintance would have given
them house room. When away from home he trembled for their
safety, tucked beneath his mattress, furtively hidden under
loosened boards in the floor, concealed hither and yon
like a squirrel’s hoard of nuts. All his holidays
were devoted to collecting them, crawling at risk of life
and limb over fresh excavations and down into new railroad
cuts.
Every
boy has his passion – his collection
of stamps or coins or marbles or what
not, and the only difference between
another boy’s and mine was that
I never outgrew it. Given a fresh excavation
today, I am just as apt to go down
on my knees and begin grubbing about
as I was at the age of ten. Each one
of those treasured stones contained
its nugget of pure gold for me – its
zeolitic minerals, green quartz, pectolite,
iron ore; and I called them all by
name as other boys spoke of their reals,
their agates, their alleys and their
pures. The Elysian Fields, the new
excavation for the Bergen Tunnel, the
many developments on Staten, Long and
Manhattan islands, including the Fourth
Avenue cut and the extension of the
New York Central Railroad – all
the pioneering engineering of our great
city offered virgin soil to the collector
of minerals – and a collector
of minerals too poor – and too
proud – to buy from dealers, I
already was. I hadn’t acquired
this passion from any acquaintances;
I certainly didn’t inherit it,
yet I can’t remember the time
when I wasn’t solitarily and unbearably
thrilled by the sight of a spot of
ore in a bit of rough rock.
I
first became conscious of this strange
passion one day when, aged ten, I dropped
into Barnum’s Museum on Ann Street
and Broadway, opposite the old Astor
Hotel, just a few weeks before it burned
down. The collection of minerals formed
by Mr. Bailey was on exhibition and
I hung, suffocated with pleasure, over
the cases. Since then my eyes have
looked upon more wealth in gems, I
suppose, than any other living eyes,
yet nothing has ever seemed to me more
thrillingly beautiful than those not-even-precious
stones in old Barnum’s Museum.
The only person who even understood
this curious passion of mine was Mr.
Benjamin Chamberlain, a man when I
was a boy, who devoted twenty-five
years to making the finest collection
of minerals from Manhattan Island ever
gathered, a collection that is now
in the Museum of Natural History.
Every boy has his passion – his collection of stamps or coins or marbles or what not, and the only difference between another boy’s and mine was that I never outgrew it.
Acclaimed
Shortly after the Barnum Museum fire my family moved to New Jersey
and I was able to start collecting minerals from the vicinity of
Bergen Hill and the Elysian Fields, gradually, as I grew older,
extending my excursions to include Franklin, Staten Island and
New York City. At the age of fourteen I started sending specimens
abroad for exchange, and had already begun that unending stream
of correspondence on mineralogy which now inundates the vaults
of several museums, the cellars and several of the rooms of my
home, my private offices, and heaven knows what outlying territories.
It all seems to me very interesting and important, though I suppose
its custodians would gladly see it heaped in a pyre on the Mall
of Central Park, its flames licking the sky.
Between
working days and studying nights at Cooper Union, with a few holidays
in the summer, I managed to complete my first collection, and whatever
else may be said of it, it was, from the point of sheer bulk and
weight, the most considerable I have ever made. It contained 4000
specimens and weighed two tons! It now became my great and consuming
ambition to sell this collection, not so much for the money it
might bring but to mark myself in the eyes of the world as a real
collector.
Between working days and studying nights at Cooper Union, with a few holidays in the summer, I managed to complete my first collection, and whatever else may be said of it, it was, from the point of sheer bulk and weight, the most considerable I have ever made. It contained 4000 specimens and weighed two tons!
Of course such collections are of value only to museums, their interest being purely mineralogical and geological. A mineralogist collects everything that Nature produces, and those things with the least commercial value often have the greatest value in his eyes. Already my collection was so good that I was able not only to exchange abroad but even to sell duplicates here, some to Dr. Harvey Wiley, the pure-food expert; and when I finally received an offer of $400 for the lot – it was, of course, worth much more – from the University of Minnesota, I was smothered in pride. Not I think, when I received the honors of Officier de la Légion d’Honneur, of a Knight of the Order of St. Olaf, or Officer of the Order of the Rising Sun of Japan, did I experience the same thrill as on that day that officially placed me among recognized mineralogists. [This jade bowl pictured in the top photo is now in the collection of Pala International.]
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Not
all my childhood was a delectable grubbing for minerals.
I remember less passionate but not less happy hours spent
in walks – before we moved away from New York – with
my father, who was a great lover of Nature, in search
of various wild flowers through the fields and lanes
and little wooded stretches of New York City. Everything
north of Forty-second Street was an open cut, and at
Fifty-ninth Street the city broke into a turbulent wilderness.
Below that, one house to a block was a good average,
horse cars and carriages were the only means of getting
about, and it took three-quarters of an hour to go from
Canal Street to Fifty-ninth.
Then,
in Jersey, I had a playground it
would be hard to beat – one
that had cost almost $5,000,000.
At the foot of Third Street in
Hoboken lay the bulk of one man’s
magnificent but impractical dream.
In 1861, when the war broke out,
Edwin Stevens, founder of the Stevens
Institute of Technology, had a
beloved daughter in the South.
He couldn’t face the torture
and suspense of being separated
from her during the uncertain duration
of the war, nor any perilous attempts
she might make to win her way north.
So, like the lordly gentleman he
was, he built her a ship of her
own to sail south for her and carry
her home in triumph. No ordinary
passenger ship was this – no
gentleman’s pleasure yacht – but,
killing two birds with one stone,
this amazing man – who feared
as much for the safety of New York
as for that of his daughter, and
always maintained that any properly
guarded enemy ship could enter
the harbor and blow us to pieces – built
a submersible gunboat for our defense.
A mineralogist collects everything that Nature produces, and those things with the least commercial value often have the greatest value in his eyes.
Alas, though at his death he left an extra million to complete it, it was never finished and was finally scrapped and sold in 1875 for $55,000, never having fired a shot in defense of the city. When I was a lad it was the $5,000,000 playground of the Stevens boys and their friends, and better caves, mines, pirate holds or thieves’ dens I defy any boy to find. They had no luck with their boats, those Stevenses. There was an earlier Stevens who built a single and double propeller boat before Robert Fulton built his, but the name of Fulton, not that of Stevens, is the one that has come to be commonly associated with early steam navigation on the Hudson.
Why
are They Precious?
I
made other mineralogical collections
after that – better if not bigger – and
sold them to various museums, so
that it was natural that I should
eventually become connected with
the Museum of Natural History in
New York, which at that time modestly
occupied two floors in the little
old red brick Arsenal Building in
Central Park. Later I was offered
the directorship of the National
Museum at Washington, but I had already
begun to look in another direction.
I wanted to continue working at one
thing only as long as I felt I could
better myself, and though I still
employed my leisure in studying mineralogy
and chemistry I had become interested
in another phase of the science.
At
that time the jewelry profession was
strictly confined to precious stones,
of which there are but four – the
diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire – and – not
a stone but none the less precious – the
pearl. These were, as a matter of fact,
the only gems that were really seriously
considered, although cameos had a certain
less solemn vogue, as also the onyx
and bloodstone. Up until the middle
of the nineteenth century, coral, opal
and turquoise had been considered precious
gems, but due to the change in fashion,
to the great quantities of inferior
material put on the market and to increased
understanding of the nature of gems,
they had by this time been ranked with
the semiprecious gems.
Now
in my mineralogical investigations
I had from time to time come across
many beautiful minerals that had all
the qualities of gems, being of great
hardness, tenacity, brilliancy, transparency,
purity and exquisite coloring. Cut
and polished, many of these stones
rivaled in beauty the precious stones.
They were indeed, in every acceptance
of the term, gems, even though denied
the epithet “precious.”
This
question of preciousness is an interesting
one. Just what is it, I am often asked,
that ranks a gem as precious? What
excludes it? It is no one quality but
a combination of several. The opal
may certainly lay claim to be as beautiful
as the ruby; yet the ruby is precious
and the opal is not. The zircon is
as brilliant as the diamond, yet not
precious. The beryl is as hard as the
emerald, yet not precious. The tourmaline
is as durable as the pearl, yet not
precious. The hiddenite is more rare
than the sapphire, yet not precious.
Here are the prime qualities that determine
the rank of a gem – all of them
possessed by stones ranked as semiprecious.
But preciousness is like the beauty
of a face it is not alone a fine pair
of eyes or a lovely complexion that
constitutes beauty, but a combination
of several qualities.
At that time the jewelry profession was strictly confined to precious stones, of which there are but four–the diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire – and – not a stone but none the less precious – the pearl.
Therefore
it is only when a gem possesses to the nth degree, first,
hardness – the principal qualification – then
brilliancy, then beauty, then durability, then rarity,
that it is given the brevet of preciousness. As in a horse
or a dog, it is a question of the highest number of points.
That is why the diamond outranks all other jewels. It really
possesses the qualities of all other stones – the
greatest hardness, an unsurpassed brilliancy, an unrivaled
beauty – due to its play of color and its fire – an
unexcelled durability and extreme rarity. But, above all,
it is its supremacy in hardness that places it beyond all
other stones. It is the hardest known substance on earth
and, as far as we can judge, on any planet.
Rubies
and sapphires come next in hardness – they
are one and the same stone, except
for the coloring matter – and
emeralds rank third, being, even
though third, yet so hard that nothing
will scratch them but a precious
stone.
The
pearl stands alone. The diamond is
king, the pearl, queen – with
just that touch of feminine frailty
that is part of a woman’s charm.
For the pearl is less hard than many
even of the semiprecious stones; yet – again
like a woman – it has as much
endurance as the masculine gems. I
have myself tried its feminine durability
by the severest tests. I once took
a number of pearls weighing two grains
each and, placing them on pine, oak,
mahogany and rosewood boards, pressed
them in with my heel, and none of them
was broken or scratched, though they
sank clean into all the boards, with
the exception of the rosewood, into
which they sank only halfway. It is
this quality of the pearl that raises
it unquestionably above the opal, which
is more or less fragile.
In
those early days, as I have said, no
so-called fancy stones were on sale
in any jewelry store in the country;
one could scarcely find them in a lapidary’s
shop, yet, reviewing those that I had
gathered, it seemed to me that many
ladies, even those who could afford
the gesture of diamond tiara and pearl
choker, would be happy to array themselves
in the endless gorgeous colors of these
unexploited gems. As I looked over
a collection of them, with the sunlight
imprisoned in the sea-green depths
of the tourmaline, lapping at the facets
of the watery blue aquamarine, flooding
the blood-red cup of the garnet, glancing
from the ice-blue edges of the beryl,
melting in the misty nebula of the
moonstone, entangled in the fringes
of the moss agate, brilliantly concentrated
in the metallic zircon, forming a milky
star in the heart of the illusive star
sapphire – how, I thought, could
a woman ever resist their subtle appeal?
A New Gem
So
one day, buckled in youth,
I wrapped a tourmaline in a
bit of gem paper, swung on
a horse car, and all the way
to my destination rehearsed
my arguments. Arrived there,
I was finally received by the
managing head of what was even
then the largest jewelry establishment
in the world, and showed him
my drop of green light. I explained – a
very little; the gem itself
was its own best argument.
Tiffany bought it – the
great dealers in precious stones
bought their first tourmaline
from me. The check which crinkled
in my pocket as I walked home
in the late afternoon, forgetting
there were cars, stargazing,
tripping over curbs, meant
very little in comparison with
the fact that I had interested
a foremost jeweler of that
time in my revolutionary theory
and made the acquaintance of
a man who was later to become
my close friend.
So one day, buckled in youth, I wrapped a tourmaline in a bit of gem paper, swung on a horse car, and all the way to my destination rehearsed my arguments. Arrived there, I was finally received by the managing head of what was even then the largest jewelry establishment in the world, and showed him my drop of green light.
Thereafter I sold Tiffany’s many other semiprecious stones. Then one day came the offer to join the firm as their first gem expert, and ever since I have held that position. In those first days very naturally a large part of my interest was engaged in this problem of discovering and introducing, one after another, as the public gradually became interested, these lovely, unknown semiprecious stones in which no jeweler of the time was even slightly interested. Of course, with the backing of such a firm I was in a commanding position to do this. Naturally, at first the public was skeptical. I not infrequently heard such withering remarks as: “A zircon? What’s a zircon? It’s just an imitation stone, isn’t it?… You mean it grows like that?… Oh, no, thank you, I’d feel as if I were wearing something false.” Or, “Well, of course it’s pretty, but I’d feel like a gypsy. I’d just as lief wear a lump of colored glass. It has no real value.” And the poor little blob of sunlight would dwindle in my palm till even I had some difficulty in maintaining my respect for it – the zircon that today sells as high as forty dollars a carat and a single fine gem of which has brought as high as $2000, not to mention the tourmaline, fine examples of which sell for thirty dollars a carat, and a very fine cat’s-eye for more than $100 a carat.
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A Crystal Rainbow
Bucking public opinion, or rather, prejudice, is a heartbreaking task
when it touches people’s purses. However, in those early days
I had some encouragement. I invariably found that it was those
who eared least for money and most for beauty – in other words,
artists – who needed no persuasion to my way of thinking.
It was sufficient to show a handful of these lovely things to a
lover of color to hear unstinted praise of my pets. I remember
once showing some of these gems to Oscar Wilde, who was himself
a connoisseur and had a not uninteresting collection of his own.
“But,
my dear Kunz,” he said, “these are exquisite, charming! I
believe I admire them even more than the precious stones for among
them, except for rarities, we have only the four obvious colors, but
here – why, there’s not a color on land or sea but is imprisoned
in one of these heavenly stones! What wonderful jewelry could be made
with these subtle phrases of color such things as only the ancients
and the barbarians made – work of Egyptians, Persians, Greeks
and Romans – such beauties as we moderns have never conceived.
My dear fellow, I see a renaissance of art, a new vogue in jewelry
in this idea of yours!”
“And
for those of conservative taste these
stones can be as handsomely mounted in
present-day settings as the precious
stones,” I added.
He
snapped his fingers, shook that mane
of hair.
“Bah!
Who cares for the conservatives! Give
them their costly jewels and conventional
settings. Let me have these broken lights – these
harmonies and dissonances of color. Can
you price beauty by the carat?”
“Bah! Who cares for the conservatives! Give them their costly jewels and conventional settings. Let me have these broken lights – these harmonies and dissonances of color. Can you price beauty by the carat?”
Helping the Movement
That was an artist’s point of view, and Wilde, whatever his faults,
was an artist. And that prophecy of his concerning a new genre of jewelry,
which I had only vaguely sensed at the time, has come amazingly true.
Not the least popular cases in the great jewelry shops of today are
those where the fantasy of the artist; escaping from the conventionalities
of platinum and precious stones in their delicate frost and lacework
designs, runs riot in turquoise amethyst, tourmaline, topaz, chalcedony,
peridot, baroque pearl, rose quartz, obsidian, sunstone, amazonite,
coral, opal, starlite, lapis lazuli and a hundred other once rare but
now quite usual gems, worked not only with platinum but also with that
metal of many shades – gold. And no lady with a quarter of a yard
of diamond and emerald bracelets up her arm or three yards of Oriental
pearls about her pretty neck would today scorn a great star sapphire
for her finger or a beryl bracelet for her less formal moments.
It’s
odd and amusing how sometimes a little, inconsequential accident somewhere
in the world will give impetus to some distant movement, just as a
sudden shock of sound sometimes precipitates an avalanche. About the
time I was most worried about the launching of this new vogue in gems
the Duke of Connaught, way off in England, took a fancy to marry and,
without fear and without reproach, selected for his fiancée,
not the conventional and lordly diamond but a humble little cat’s-eye.
Well, when the Duke of Connaught can do that – With that as an
opening wedge, I soon found greater favor for my hyacinths and my jacinths,
my jasper and my jade.
Now,
when it comes to semiprecious stones,
America is not so poor a country as one
might imagine. We are no great shucks
so far as the precious stones are concerned,
though they are all four, and the pearl,
found in not-to-be-sniffed-at quantities
within our borders. Strange that when
Columbus sailed all the way to the New
World to open up a new India, richer
in precious stones than the old, we should
have turned out to be the poorest of
all the continents in this kind of wealth.
However, when it comes to the semiprecious
stones there is not a state in the Union
that can’t hold up its head. About
the time I was making my initial efforts
to launch these semiprecious stones commercially,
the United States, awakened by the Centennial
collections, began to take an interest
in itself mineralogically and to institute
scientific researches for gems. Naturally
all this helped my cause and I, too,
began to go out upon those excursions
of exploration and discovery that have
acquainted me so thoroughly with the
gem resources of America. From that time
on, for twenty years I was in charge
of the precious-stones department of
the United States Census, visiting practically
every state in the Union.
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Gems In Your Dooryard
I think that we in America don’t realize in what close proximity
we are all living to buried wealth in gems. Do you, Mr. Maine, know
that some of the finest tourmalines in the world are found not a hundred
yards from your doorstep in the vicinity of Paris? Do you, Mr. North
Carolina realize that the second largest emerald in the world was found
within a few hours’ ride of your home? Have you ever heard Mr.
California, that a beautiful green gem named for you was discovered
in your back yard and that two other brand-new gems, never before heard
of, were discovered in your own mountains? And you, Mr. Montana, do
you know that sapphires are found in your back yard, and you, Mr. New
York, do you know about your beryls; and you, Mr. Utah, about your
topazes and your garnets? Not one of you but has some beautiful and
valuable gem close at hand, often several. Have you heard the story
Mr. New Jersey, of your famous pearls? Of one in particular, the most
famous of all? Quite a romance.
The
first awakening to the value of freshwater pearls in America – which,
by the way, though ordinarily less lustrous and therefore less valuable
than Oriental sea pearls, bring extremely high prices, occasionally
up to $16,000 apiece – came in 1857. A shoemaker of Paterson,
New Jersey brought home a mess of mussels from one of his regular excursions
for shell fish in Noteh Brook which he proceeded to fry with the usual
abundance of grease. As he took one of the succulent bits into his
mouth his teeth closed on a hard round object which he was later informed
by an authority was a pearl weighing 400 grains and which, had its
beauty and luster not been destroyed by heat and grease, would probably
have proved to be the finest pearl of modern times, worth doubtless
more than $25,000. This was also probably one of the most expensive
dinners of modern times.
So
then the hunt was on, and men, women
and children with trousers and skirts
rolled up went wading in the shallow
waters of the little stream for the
wonderful pearls that must surely be
there, for no belief in the world,
except the gambler’s belief in
the next turn of the wheel, is stronger
than the gem hunter’s belief in
his find Lost hours and years are counted
as nothing when, or if, finally the
illusive gleam drops into his palm.
And
then one evening a New Jersey carpenter,
sitting at his fireside, opening the
oysters he had gathered that day, gave
a little cry and jumped up, holding
in his hand something that shone with
the unmistakable effulgence of the
true pearl – a frighteningly large
pearl. Almost as soon as he found it,
after he and his wife had taken one
long, seared look at it, he hid it,
and slept not at all that night. The
next day at dawn he hitched the oxen
to his cart, and crossing the river
on a ferry, came riding slowly and
solemnly through the streets of New
York, not so strange a sight in those
days, though queer enough, as it would
be today.
The Vanished Queen Pearl
At that time there was
but one possible destination
for so rare a find, and straight
to Tiffany’s, then a low
brick building on the corner
of Chambers Street and Broadway,
our epic carpenter rode, hitched
his team outside and strode,
leaving sly clerical smiles
in his wake, down the aisles
to the president’s office.
Wonderfully enough for he would
open his palm to no one else,
he saw the president, who for
the moment was only less frightened
than the carpenter. For a true
pearl of monstrous size, beautiful
luster, and exquisite pink
color it undoubtedly was; but
the president’s fright
was of a somewhat different
nature from the carpenter’s.
A true pearl of great price!
But suppose where it came from – not
seventeen miles from where
he sat – and in other
streams of this wide land,
there should now be found dozens,
hundreds, thousands like it – what
then of the price of this great
pearl?
Here
were both a promise and a threat.
Here were a financial problem and
one of ethics. If there were but
the one, this pearl might be worth
to him and the carpenter almost anything;
but if, as was more likely, there
should be great numbers it might
be worth very little to them.
“Tell
me about this pearl,” he said
slowly.
The
carpenter shuffled
“I
found it in Noteh Brook yesterday,” was
all he found to say, adding nothing
to the sum total of the president’s
knowledge. Then he added suddenly: “My
wife and girl want some jewelry.”
The
president smiled. He paused another
moment for an equitable adjustment
and then said, “I’ll pay
you $1250 in cash for this pearl
and give you $250 more in trade.
Does that satisfy you?”
The
carpenter shuffled his feet in satisfaction
and together they passed out into
the showroom to select the jewelry
for the wife and girl.
And
so the great Tiffany Queen Pearl,
weighing ninety-three grains – few,
if any, ladies in America today have
a pearl of that size in their necklaces – came
into the market. It was sold first
to the lovely Empress Eugenie, later
came into the possession of Herr
Hansel von Donwermark the great industrialist
of Germany, and then suddenly disappeared.
To whom it was next sold is not known,
nor where it is today, but doubtless
somewhere in Europe, as it is seldom
that great gems pass out of existence.
They may be for a while among the
missing, and then suddenly they turn
up in some unexpected place. It is
just possible that this mention of
it here may bring us some word of
this missing pearl. To its story
we have only to add that, although
pearls amounting to $300,000 were
eventually found in Noteh Brook by
the hordes of visitors and local
laborers who rushed there, no others
of its size and beauty were ever
brought to light, making this an
important item in American gem history
and its present value, if it is still
alive, about $10,000.
“Tell
me about this pearl,” he said slowly.
The
carpenter shuffled
“I
found it in Noteh Brook yesterday,” was
all he found to say, adding nothing to
the sum total of the president’s
knowledge. Then he added suddenly: “My
wife and girl want some jewelry.”
The
president smiled. He paused another moment
for an equitable adjustment and then
said, “I’ll pay you $1250 in
cash for this pearl and give you $250
more in trade. Does that satisfy you?”
The
carpenter shuffled his feet in satisfaction
and together they passed out into the
showroom to select the jewelry for the
wife and girl.
And
so the great Tiffany Queen Pearl, weighing
ninety-three grains – few, if any,
ladies in America today have a pearl
of that size in their necklaces – came
into the market.
Pearls Before Swine
Though this one important pearl came from New Jersey, Noteh Brook is
completely overshadowed as a pearl fishery by a dozen other sources
within our boundaries, and many extraordinary pearls, some even
more valuable than the Queen, have in the past sixty or seventy
years come from our waters. A negro near Marley, Illinois, found – not
while pearl fishing but while raking over the muck of a hogpen
where the discarded mussels had been thrown as feed – a pearl
weighing 118 grains for which he received $2000 from a St. Louis
buyer and which was later sold for $5000. This was literally a
case of casting pearls before swine. A pearl weighing 103 grains,
found in Arkansas, was sold for $25,000 and one of 68 grains, found
in Wisconsin, was marketed at $15,000, and there are many others.
When a simple American pearl can bring such prices as these it
isn’t difficult to figure to what prices may run a two-yard
necklace of many strands of perfectly matched Oriental pearls.
There is one necklace I know of which is valued at $1,000,000
When
the pearl fever strikes, it is like a pestilence. Thousands go down
before it and whole sections of the country are swept bare of humanity.
Crops wither, villages are deserted, and learning languishes as the
countryside is drained of its labor, diverted to the new get-rich-quick
fisheries. More than once I have visited these fever-ridden districts
in quest of scientific data rather than of pearls, for the important
buyer need never go out in search of his game; it finds its way with
great alacrity into his net. But merely for my own satisfaction I went
to one after the other of the most important of our pearl fisheries.
I
remember when the Arkansas pearl fever
broke loose in 1896. As seems usually
to be the way in a place where pearls
have always been known in small and unimpressive
quantities, the lovely gems were given
to the children as playthings – “See
pretty bead!” – and rolled
about the floor and stuffed down dolls’ throats,
and even carried about by the adults
as lucky stones. But in 1896 all that
was changed, for quite suddenly many
large and rich pearls were found in the
White River. Trouser pockets were searched,
tea canisters turned out button bags
emptied, children robbed of their playthings
to recover the beads that might now turn
out to be of untold value. Farmers deserted
their plows, schoolteachers closed their
doors, shoemakers left their benches,
and all Arkansas turned to pearl fishing.
A negro near Marley, Illinois, found – not while pearl fishing but while raking over the muck of a hogpen where the discarded mussels had been thrown as feed – a pearl weighing 118 grains for which he received $2000 from a St. Louis buyer and which was later sold for $5000. This was literally a case of casting pearls before swine.
There
I saw thousands of people daily fishing the waters of the
Black and White rivers, putting out in any kind of craft
with any kind of implement they could get their hands on.
I frequently saw several hundred people, all intent on
making a fortune in the next half hour, their faces flushed,
their hands fairly shaking with excitement, congregated
at one bar or racing like madmen to the spot where the
latest find had been made. The children, on an indefinite
holiday, were often as fortunate as their elders and brought
up many lustrous, beautiful gems. It was as though the
Stock Exchange had suddenly, one fine morning, decided
to open on the river. The result was that in three years,
more than $500,000 worth of pearls were found. Yet it has
been estimated that if the total amount of money realized
for pearls in America were divided by the number of men
and days invested in their search, each man would have
earned not more than a dollar a day. However, not this
man but he who finds in his first shell a pearl worth $1000,
is the one upon whom all eyes are turned.
Another
valuable pearl locale is Wisconsin.
Several million dollars’ worth
of pearls have come on the market
from Southwestern Wisconsin – pearls
remarkable for their beauty, luster
and diversified coloring. In 1901,
Tennessee was the scene of a pearl
rush – a rush having all the
thrill, picturesque quality, adventure,
and pathos of the Klondike affair – easy-going,
pleasure loving people of the happy-go-lucky
sort who give up steady positions
and sure incomes for the uncertain
profits of a rush, living in tents
and shanties or newly built house
boats along the banks of the Clinch
River, subsisting on the fish they
catch, dancing and singing at night
around camp fires to the music of
the banjo, and hurrying off every
Saturday afternoon to the nearest
town to sell their catch of pearls.
Ohio and Iowa have likewise contributed
importantly to the pearl industry,
and in all about $15,000,000 worth
of pearls have, in the past seventy-five
years, been realized from American
sources.
In
the main, wherever we have limestone
soil and a river we are apt to get
pearls. One of the finest necklaces
ever assembled from American pearls
was that matched by Tiffany in 1904.
This was later exhibited at the St.
Louis World’s Fair, sold to a
London merchant, and finally purchased
by a Spanish nobleman for 500,000 francs
This necklace consisted of thirty-eight
pearls weighing 1710 grains, an average
of 45 grains for each pearl. The central
gem, however, weighed 98.5 grains and
the rest were graduated down to the
last of 20 3/8 grains. A ninety-eight-grain
pearl would be about half an inch in
diameter. Of course, as pearl necklaces
go, this one is nothing so extraordinary,
for frequently Oriental necklaces of
that length are valued at $500,000.
It is impossible to assemble a perfect
or almost perfect pearl necklace from
American pearls, as they are not sufficiently
uniform in color, though very fine
necklaces have been made here.
Richer Than a Gold Mine
To
the Morgan Collection, as well
as several others, I added
pearls which I obtained from
these interesting sources;
for I felt that the finest
Oriental specimens would not
make up for the absence of
pearls found in our national
streams.
Perhaps
it’s because of my close association, through the United States
Census Bureau, with American gem localities, perhaps it’s because
of my many opportunities for studying gem mineralogy at first-hand
here, or perhaps it’s just my natural prejudice, but my travels
through the United States in quest of gems and gem lore have always
been more interesting to me than my travels anywhere else in the
world. I can’t speak here of all the gem mines from coast to
coast and from Canada to Mexico which I have visited – some
of them eight or more times – and whenever possible immediately
after their opening but there are some that won’t bear slighting.
To
the layman it would perhaps seem
improbable that, sitting at a desk
in New York, one should be able to
discover a gem mine in Montana; yet
that is just what happened to me
once.
One
day some years ago I received by
mail – which reminds me that
the Cullinan diamond, which one would
naturally expect would journey under
armed guard, was sent for safety
all the way from the Premier mines
in Africa to London by ordinary registered
mail – one day I received some
specimens in which occurred grains
of gold. These had been mined in
Yogo Gulch, Montana, on a property
bought as a gold mine. As a matter
of fact very little gold was ever
located there. But among these specimens
I found certain crystals to which
little attention had been paid, but
which, on examination, I discovered
to be fine blue sapphires. When this
information was conveyed to the owners
they immediately began to search
for other specimens, and soon brought
to light the fact that, in purchasing
a mere gold mine, they had acquired
the most valuable sapphire mine in
America, yielding more wealth than
all the other sapphire mines in America
put together – and a finer quality
of gem.
|
Size and Not Perfection
I later visited these sapphire mines and noted the peculiar way in
which Nature had aided the miners in tracing these veins of sapphire-bearing
rock. Certain portions of the rock, not more than two or three
feet wide were everywhere bored into by that too prevalent pest,
the prairie dog, in his search for a home. Wherever the rock had
undergone an alteration that softened it sufficiently for the gophers
to enter it, there, the engineers found, was a sapphire bearing
vein. By means of these despised gophers the vein was traced for
nine miles across the country. An English company bought six miles
of these veins and is still mining the sapphires in quantity. There
will be sapphires for fifty years to come in Montana. These sapphires
are of a peculiar quality. The Oriental are larger and finer, but
the American are of beautiful quality and hold their color at night – an
important point – better than any sapphires except those found
in Ceylon. They have sold as high as $100 a carat. Up to the present
time this mine has produced more than $10,000,000 worth of sapphires.
One
hears a great deal of the size and magnificence of the jewels
in the possession of Oriental and Russian potentates, and certainly
many of these famous jewels are as fine as they are large; but
not so many as we in the West are apt to believe. The greatest
part of the wealth of the world in gems today is right here in
America – an astounding proportion of it; I should say between
one-third and one-half – and we not only possess the greatest
quantity of gems and the largest proportion of big ones, but
our standard of quality is far higher not only than that of the
East but even of Europe.
Many
of the celebrated gems of the East are stones which an American lady
would not buy, let alone wear. Some of the emeralds in the Russian
crown jewels, for example, instead of being what is properly termed
a gem, are the whole large crystal – that is, when an emerald
crystal some four inches long is found, some of the foreign lapidaries
will facet and polish the whole enormous thing, although it may be
uneven in color, with fissures and inclusions. It is the size that
impresses them, and one overpowering stone of not very good quality
appeals to them more than a small but perfect jewel. A more discriminating
taste demands that the one beauty spot in that great crystal – the
tiny, unflawed, intensely green bit that constitutes the true emerald
be cut out for use as a gem and the rest discarded. That is why emeralds,
if they approach perfection, can command almost $1,000,000 an ounce – not
a high price when one realizes that perhaps only one ten-thousandth
part of the original crystals cut to produce that ounce is here represented.
However, no stone varies more in quality – from the most worthless
at $5 a carat up to gems worth well over $5000 a carat. A warning
to the amateur buyer to watch his step.
There will be sapphires for fifty years to come in Montana. These sapphires are of a peculiar quality. The Oriental are larger and finer, but the American are of beautiful quality and hold their color at night – an important point – better than any sapphires except those found in Ceylon.
America produces some very fine emerald crystals. I have visited the emerald mines in North Carolina many times and obtained wonderful specimens for the various collections I have made. I was particularly interested in these mines, as a friend of mine, Mr. Stephenson, was chiefly responsible for the discovery of emeralds in that state. If other public-spirited men throughout the country would devote themselves as whole-heartedly to the exploiting of the natural mineral resources of their part of the country as he did, perhaps many other such discoveries might be made. For more than twenty years Mr. Stephenson conducted widespread investigations for local minerals. When he began, the county was mineralogically a blank. He, an amateur mineralogist, offered rewards to all the farmers for miles around who would bring him interesting specimens of minerals.
The Romance of the Squid
Thus he discovered, among
other things, some lovely grass-green beryl; and finally,
as he urged the farmers to intensify their search for
clear and perfect specimens of dark-green beryl – the
emerald – he brought to light many veritable emeralds,
among them one of the most famous emerald crystals in
the world. This crystal, which originally belonged to
Mr. Stephenson, was eventually placed in the Bement Collection.
This remarkable emerald has only one rival in the whole
world – the famous Duke of Devonshire emerald, which
is only a quarter of an ounce heavier. Our American emerald
weighs nine ounces and is eight and one-half inches long.
A second crystal of five ounces I added to the Harvard
Collection, and other very beautiful ones to the Morgan
Collection, the British Museum and the Imperial Museum
in Vienna. Yet, though the mines were at first worked
with flattering success, in the end they did not prove
financially profitable.
Tourmalines
I drew primarily from two sources, adding them to the Morgan Harvard
and other collections. And here again one sees what the enthusiasm
of one man has done and can do again in the future if, like Mr.
Stephenson, he will devote time and energy to the work and above
all arouse the interest of the farmers in the resources of their
own fields and hills. Not all the emeralds and tourmalines in America
have yet been discovered. Wealth may still lie at our back door
and any day a new vein of gems may be opened up by the native who
searches earnestly and intelligently. A nephew of Elijah L. Hamlin
devoted the entire spare time of his life to gathering the wonderful
tourmalines his uncle had originally discovered near Paris Maine;
eventually amassing a collection so important that part went to
the American Museum of Natural History, but the greater part to
Harvard. One of the most interesting types of tourmaline here discovered
is that which looks for all the world like a miniature watermelon – green
on the outside and, when cut open, white and then watermelon pink
on the inside. Nothing is lacking but the black seeds.
It’s
not always the most valuable stones that are the most extraordinary.
Agate for example. Here is a stone which, but for a peculiar property
it possesses, would scarcely be considered a gem. It comes in such
huge masses from so many liberal sources that, like alabaster or
porphyry, it is commonly used for decorative purposes; but there’s
a certain proportion of it which, unlike any other stone, can be
transformed to something lovely enough to be called a gem.
Not all the emeralds and tourmalines in America have yet been discovered. Wealth may still lie at our back door and any day a new vein of gems may be opened up by the native who searches earnestly and intelligently.
I
don’t know of any drama in Nature more interesting
than that of the agate – the agate and the opal, for
they are one and the same stone, the opal merely containing
more water – about 5 per cent – and therefore
being less hard. So many centuries and so many upheavals
of Nature – volcanic eruptions, Cretaceous periods,
sinking of continents, removals of mountains – have
gone into the making of the jewel that a lady wears so
carelessly in her ear. “Pretty thing,” she thinks,
and that’s the end of it.
Pretty
thing! There’s the opal on her
little finger, for example. Look
at it, madam. Once a live fish wiggling
joyously through crystal waters:
but a world-rocking invention which
man has just recently developed was
conceived by this clever little squid
some aeons ago. He is shooting merrily
through the water. Suddenly danger
appears – a bigger fish, headed
murderously in his direction. Instantly
the little squid squirts a flood
of inky liquid into the water and
under cover of its murkiness, like
our modern man-of-war in its smoke
screen swiftly escapes.
Well,
when, one place and another, the
waters of the earth dried up, millions
of these little squids were left
gasping on dry land. Then came convulsions
of Nature; gases were belched forth,
lava streamed out, volcanoes erupted,
heated waters spouted, rocks were
hurled forth; and the little squid
skeletons were caught in the lava
and embedded in the rocks. So then
the heated waters containing soluble
silica came creeping over the rocks
and began to eat their way into the
bones of the squid, mingling with
the lime, with which they had a natural
affinity, rather than seeping into
the harder rock. Slowly throughout
the centuries the waters ate away
the bone forming a deposit which
leaped in the sunlight like living
fire – the opal. Sometimes,
when there was not a bit of bone
or wood or shell embedded in the
rock, the waters found a crevice – a
narrow opening leading to a wider
cavity. The gases and boiling waters
trickled through this crevice, depositing
silica. Gradually the narrow neck
of this natural rock bottle was closed
by these deposits, and today, when
we find one of them, it is completely
sealed over. But shake it and you
will hear those century-old waters
aswish inside. Smash it, and there,
lining the bottle with beauty, is
the jewel agate or opal. In New South
Wales much opal was thus formed,
and in Yellowstone Park, Oregon,
and other places in the United States
agate was so deposited.
Drawn in its Own Ink
Oh, but about the squid! Not
all of them underwent this divine transfiguration to
gems, and many remained as fossils in the rock. I picked
up a whole cigar box full myself in Jersey, for New Jersey,
parts of which were once a sea, had its Cretaceous period,
and near Freehold, for example, one can find today shark’s
teeth, sea-reptile skeletons – some five feet high – and
other remnants of sea life, making this soil unusually
rich for agricultural purposes. And last act in the drama
of the squid: A naturalist recently opened the bone of
one at the place where the ink with which it clouded
the waters was concealed, and there found a minute deposit
of black powder. With this powder, merely adding water,
the naturalist re-created ink and drew a picture of the
squid in his own ink – ink thousands of years old.
This same little squid – cuttlefish or devilfish – is
still a favorite food among the Italians.
Look
again at your opal, madam. Isn’t it now something more than
just a pretty thing?
The
opal, though of the same chemical composition as the agate – barring
the higher percentage of water – is much more beautiful and,
like the cat’s-eye, star sapphire, moss agate, and a few other
gems, is never faceted; merely cut and polished. I think it is
the favored stone of most artists, who delight in its unmatched
play of color. But the agate – the less attractive of these
two sister stones – makes up for this by the peculiar property
of which I spoke. You know those exquisite cameos that come down
to us from the ancient Greeks, marvels of the lapidary’s art,
a delicate goddess’ head, perhaps, carved in white on a marron
ground? The agate transformed!
Look again at your opal, madam. Isn’t it now something more than just a pretty thing?
One of Nature’s Masterpieces
This stone is built up by Nature in layers, alternately pervious and
impervious, and this characteristic the ancients discovered. Onyx,
consisting of one black and one white layer, does occasionally
exist in Nature, and this was doubtless what was first used for
cameos. But later lapidaries discovered that if certain agates
were boiled in sugar and water or blood and water till the pervious
layers had become saturated, and then immersed in sulphuric acid,
the liquid drawn up into the stone would turn a velvety black,
thus forming one black layer, while the other layer remained totally
unaffected and as pure as the driven snow. So there was a little
discovery – a treatment that can be applied to no other stone – that
instantly raised the plebeian agate to the ranks of a gem.
Even
today, when cameos are no longer so fashionable as formerly, they
are in high repute as works of art, and many wonderful collections – certain
single pieces valued as high as $10,000 and more – are in private
hands as well as in museums. Carnelian and sardonyx are not natural
gems but are likewise created by dyeing the bluish-gray agate in
different solutions. The black stone commonly called onyx really
should not be so called, but should have a name of its own; for onyx,
properly speaking, means a stone of two layers of different colors,
whereas what is commonly asked for as onyx – in especial demand
by those in mourning – is in one layer only. However it would
be practically impossible to change this popular misconception.
One
of the most beautiful natural agates I have ever seen – and
I paid its weight in gold for it – is a bit about two and one-half
inches long and one and one-half inches wide. In it Nature, for once
a Christian has formed a lovely Madonna – no doubt about its
being a Madonna. As clear, as exquisitely colored – soft reds
and blues on a gray ground – as droopingly tender as an Italian
Primitive, it glows in the cloudy agate, miniature features delicately
marked tiny prayerful hands, a robe beautifully fashioned – a
miracle to make one believe in divine intervention. How we ask, could
an accident be so perfect even to the sacred droop of the head?
Editor’s Note – This is the first of several articles by Doctor Kunz and Mrs. Ray. The next will appear in the issue for December tenth.
To read Part 2 of this article, click here
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February 4, 2008
