Online Encyclopedia

SAPPHIRE

Online Encyclopedia
Originally appearing in Volume V24, Page 202 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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SAPPHIRE  ,1 a

blue transparent variety of
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corundum, or native alumina, much valued as a gem-stone . It is essentially the same
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mineral as ruby, from which it differs chiefly in colour . The colour of the normal sapphire varies from the palest blue to deep indigo, the most esteemed tint being that of the blue cornflower . Many of the crystals are parti-coloured, the blue being distributed in patches in a colourless or yellow stone; but by skilful cutting, the deep-coloured portion may be caused to impart colour to the entire gem . As the sapphire crystallizes in the hexagonal
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system it is dichroic, but in pale stones this character may not be well marked . In a deep-coloured stone the colour may be resolved, by the dichroscope, into an
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ultramarine 1 Indirectly from Gr. o&orq5uupos, but there seems no doubt that this
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term, like the
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Hebrew sapir of the Old Testament, was formerly applied to what is now called lapis lazuli; the
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modern sapphire was probably known as u&xwOos (
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hyacinthus) . colour . It is a silicate, containing aluminium, magnesium and iron, brought originally from Greenland, and since found in a rock from the
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Vizagapatam
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district in India . (F . W .

End of Article: SAPPHIRE
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SAPPHO (7th–6th centuries B.C.)

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