Show PRECIOUS STONES IN 11111 AMERICAN COLLECTIONS IIIIIL 11111 Tlicy Contain Some of tIle Finest Gems in the World The J Pierpont y Morgan Collection In tho American lascuin of Xatnral History c Embraces Over a Thousand Specimens Native to the United States BY GEORGE F KUNZ I S Copyright 1896 by George F Kunz I One of the first collections of precious I stones formed in the United States was I begun early in the century by Profes sor J JL Cox of the University of S Pennsyhania In 1860 it passed into the possession of Professor Joseph I Leidy of Philadelphia who continued I addinjr to it until 1880 At that time I it comprised 221 lots and was considered 1 consid-ered the finest collection in the United i S States all the specimens having been chosen with great care and scientific II accuracy The cabinet was offered for S sale but failing to find a purchaser it i iws disposed of by a Boston dealer who soon scattered among his customers cus-tomers the fruits of over half a cen t turys patient gathering I The United States National museum contains a fine collection of gems It it numbers about 2000 specimens many I of which were found in the United States and includes examples of nearly near-ly every known variety of precious stone Many of them are remarkably good specimensas notably the diamond dia-mond and pearls presented to President i f Presi-dent Van Buren by the Imam of Muscat I Mus-cat In 1894 it received a great gift in the remarkable collection made by the t 3ate Dr Isaac Lea of Philadelphia who f died in December 1896 at the age of 95 I t years For the last thirty years of his life this eminent scientist devoted I much time to the study of microscopic f Inclusions of gems and minerals The L cabinet bequeathed by him to his L daughter and by her to the United States National museum contains thousands of specimens of rubies sapphires f sap-phires chrysoberyls tourmalines garnets i gar-nets quartz and other stones each t specimen labelled and generally accompanied I ac-companied by a drawing showing the interesting inclusions His extensive r writings include several papers on inclusions in-clusions in precious stones One of the finest collections of prec 1 Sous stones and also the most important t impor-tant embracing all those found in the I United States is the one presented by I Mr J Pierpont Morgan to the American Ameri-can Museum of Natural History Central Cen-tral park N Y This collection which contains over 1000 specimens of all obtainable ob-tainable precious and ornamental t Stones native to the United States and c some of the finest known examples of t foreign stones was exhibited by Messrs Tiffany Co at the Worlds i fair in Paris in 1889 and viewed by f S immense throngs of people The Yale College university collection S collec-tion contains the Gibbs collection the I Parrot collection the Tenney tourmaline tourma-line and many other fine specimens The Garland gift to the collections of Harvard university at Cambridge Mass the last containing also many 5 line examples of gems in their naturalS natural-S form chief among these is the richest collection or tourmaline in existenceS i existence-S gathered daring the past < seventy i three years by the Hamhns father and sons of Bangor Me This beautiful and interesting gem Dr Hamlin is now describing in a volume containing many colored plates In addition to S hIs the collection contains some of the finest existing Uraline gemminerals a S Queensland opal of 3300 carats and a I ninetyonecarat yellow diamond The Hamilton college collection at Clinton N Y contains the Root collection i col-lection of brown tourmaline from 1 SS northern ICew York I The late Professor C U Shepards i 1 collection at Amherst college Amherst Muss contains many fine tourmaline S and other gemminerals f The state cabinet at Albany has ant an-t interesting collection of rough and cut f i gems many of them from American localities f At the Metropolitan Museum of Art t 3vew York are the Curium gems f brought by General Lungi P di Ces f nola from the Island of Cyprus Some of these were described in his volume r on Cyorus and are on exhibition with the Cesnola collection A fuller description de-scription of them was prepared by the I IteV C W King of Trinity college t EnglanJ but has never beer pub i Jished The King collection of antique L gems numbering 331 pieces is also at the Metropolitan museum it is an epi i tome of his vast knowledge and supplies r sup-plies the illustrations for his invaluable F invalu-able writings It was purchased and I L presented to the Metropolitan Museum 11 of Art by Tohn Taylor Johnston then rpresidert of the museum Of greater antiquity and of greater archaeological L value because representing a period I 1 efore gems were cut in the form of S intaglios is the collection of the Rev I W H Ward consisting of 700 Babylonian S Baby-lonian Assyrian and other cylinders i Two hundred collected in Babylon andS and-S its vicinity by the Catherine Wolfe exploration ex-ploration were sold to the museum at a nominal figure Since that time lie 4 has collected the other cylinders many t of which date from 200 B C to 300 B 1 C and are made of lapis lazuli the r sapphire of the ancients agate corne ian hematite and chalcedony A It hand book describing this collection is t for sale at the museum An interesting collection of minerals nnd ornamental stones is on exhibition i at Pratt institute Brooklyn N YIn f Y-In Europe Asia and Africa Dr Max yule Sommerville for thirtytwo years I collected cameos intaglios seals and other historical gems and as a result S of his liberal expenditure of time and money he is the owner of a valuable I t collection of engraved gems It num tr 1 Ibers over 2500 objects of singular excellence f ex-cellence including specimens of Egypt S San Persian Babylonian Etruscan Greek Roman Aztec and Mexican glyptic or jewelcarving affording a panoramic View of the achievements of man in this line of art His collection collec-tion is now deposited at the University t of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia In the same Institution is the late Dr c Lamborns collection of personal ornaments orna-ments the remarkable lapis lazuli objects f ob-jects from Assyria and a fine collection collec-tion of cylinders and other hard stone r objects In the Assyrian room |