Show January Birthstone Garnet also called the is found in ail parts of the but comparatively few of them are gem stone They are composed of a complex aluminum silicate in which various metallic oxides enter as They are formed and colored by ferrous and manganese GARNETS HAVE been known and used since and of course many legends and superstitions have grown around Until the last hah of the century they were a valued then Bohemia a part of the Chec mined an inferior yellowish-red stone and went into the jewelry business in a big The stone was not attractive and the jewelry was cheap and and a stigma developed against all All garnets are not red There are pale olive reddish-brown and the yellowish-red The truly garnet that comes from the diamond mines in the district of Africa Is difficult to distinguish from a true IN THE trade it is known as a Cape and a person must be a gem expert to distinguish it from the true precious A story is told of the woman who chipped a ruby in a ring handed down In her family for over a examination exposed it to be a fine garnet and the value of the ring decreased FOR MANY years the large jewel in the crown of the English queen was believed to be a highly valuable but closer analysis proved it to be an exceptionally perfect the green garnet mined in the Ural mountains of Russia is olivine in color and hard to distinguish from the highly valuable Many of these stones still pass as the true THE HISTORY of the name is somewhat Tracing shows that one version came to England by way of France as the word and this would seem to stem from the Latin word whose root is bedded in a Sanskrit word meaning wear The Latin means and possibly stems from the whose color is red and whose pulp covers its many so rich in semiprecious gem has a mountain of somewhat to Topaz Mountain by I was scheduled to make the trip to this mountain at one but we could not make the right It is in four-corners and is far out in the It can only be reached in and it is necessary to travel In an truck to gel to It is commercially owned and the garnets arc many of them I do not know if it is still in several years These are The sapphire or ruby do yield some very small but they arc too small to be of commercial although now they might be melted and a though true ruby cut from These are the pale red found in rubies mined in The commercially trade valued stones are For people who collect often a or matrix with one or two garnets imbedded can be purchased in gem These are not valuable but just conversation THE ORIGIN of birth-stones is always but il was not until the eighteenth century that they i became as we now know Then the people not only wore the stone of the month as a talisman and charm against but also wore their natal Now although wc still wear the strange superstitions connected with them are mostly forgotten and the beauty of the stone is enjoyed without |