ARTIFICIAL RUBIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 13, 3 June 1914, Page 6

ARTIFICIAL RUBIES.

A PROFITABLE IXDU3TUV

It will be remembered that the late Sir Julius Wernher, chairman of De Beer's Company, one of the shrewdest business men of his day, was swindled ■ in Paris by a man who professed to be aide to manufacture diamonds (writes Sir Henry Lucy in the Sydney Morning Herald). A well-known dealer in precious stones tells me that the manufacture of certain kinds is a recognised and profitaible industry. Rubier of the finest quality and of the purest "pigeon's blood" colour, as well as sapphires spinellcs, and chrysoberyls. are being turned out in quantity from several laboratories in France and Germany. Not only is the manufactured product'a real ruby, but it is possible to produce rubies of a size and perfection t'he natural stones rarely equal. As regards size, the average Burmese ruby weighs only one-eighth of a carat: Rubies of the same colour are easily made in the size of five or ten carats, and much larger ones have been produced. A onecarat Burmese ruby of line colour would formerly fetch £25 to .I'afl, in exceptional cases much more. What a similar 1 stone would produce to-day only a gemdealer can tell. But, in view of the "fact that a perfect synthetic ruby of identical size, shape, and colour can lie bought for 10s, it seems hardly probably that the old prices for natural si ones can be maintained. Efforts to create diamonds have up to now attained o;:lv partial success. The be-t that has been done is to turn out of the electric furnace microscopic though real stones. That was ' the result achieved under the expert eves of Sir Julius Wernher in his dealing with the Paris necromancer.