The diamond, the gem of winter, typifying the sun, is the gem of light. Its color is that of ice, and as the dewdrop or the drop of water from a mountain stream sparkles in the light of the sun, as the icicle sparkles in winter, and the stars on a cold winter night, so the diamond sparkles, and it combines and contrasts with all known gems. Like light, it illumines them just as the sun does the plants of the earth. The diamond, the gem of light, like light itself when broken into a spectrum, gives us all known colors, and by combining all these colors it gives us white. Like gold, the diamond was made rare, so that it must be searched for, and the mines and deposits contain less of these two substances in a given area than of any other known materials. It is thirty to a hundred times more rare than gold, for if gold occurs one part in 250,000, it can scarcely be worked with profit, while the diamond can be worked to advantage when found only one part in 10,000,000,—yes, even one part in 25,000,000—and, like gold, it sometimes spurs the searcher on to wealth or to ruin. As great nuggets of gold have occasionally been found, so has a diamond been discovered large enough to make the greatest ruler pause to pay its price, and one which it took an entire country to give to that ruler who sways his sceptre over countries in which the world’s greatest diamonds have been found. When the God of the Mines called his courtiers to bring him all known gems, he found them to be of all colors and tints, and of varying hardnesses, such as the ruby, emerald, sapphire, etc., etc. He took one of each; he crushed them; he compounded them, and said: “Let this be something that will combine the beauty of all; yet it must be pure, and it must be invincible.” He spoke: and lo! the diamond was born, pure as the dewdrop and invincible in hardness; but when its ray is resolved in the spectrum, it displays all the colors of the gems from which it was made. “Mine,” said the god, “must be the gem of the universe; for my queen I will create one that shall be the greatest gem of the sea,” and for her he created the pearl. Gems of Spring Gems of Summer Amethyst Zircon Green diamond Garnet (demantoid and ouvarite) Chrysoberyl Chrysoberyl (alexandrite) Spinel (rubicelle) Spinel Pink topaz Pink topaz Olivine (peridot) Ruby Emerald Fire opal Gems of Autumn Gems of Winter Hyacinth Diamond Topaz Rock-crystal Sapphire White sapphire Jacinth Turquoise Cairngorm Quartz Adamantine spar Moonstone Tourmaline Pearl Oriental chrysolite Labradorite SENTIMENTS OF THE MONTHS JANUARY