The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1896-05-03

81, 000 Since the recent introduction
into cheap jewelry of the Chinese nat
ural green and artificially colored red
and yellow moss agate, the sale of the
American has greatly fallen off. At
Hartville. Wyoming, large masses of
moss agate, weighing from forty to
nifty pounds each, were recently found
IN limestone rock. When cut into trans
lucent slabs, they show the magnificent
black dendritic or moss-like markings
in most striking manner. Some table
tops of this elegant material were ex-
hibited in the Wyoming section of the
mining building at the Worlds Column
bian exposition The finest instructive
collection of agate known is THE won
derful series presented to the Harvard
meteorological cabinet by DR.. w. S.
Bigelow of Boston. Ruskin wrote upon
and presented a fine series of agates
to the British museum.
If chalcedony is boiled in a solution
of mOlasseS and water, blood and wa
ter, or sugar and water, until it has
absorbed a quantity of the solution, and
is then again boiled in sulphuric acid,
the transparent hydro-carbon is chang
ed to a charcoal-like substance, and
black onyx is produced. When Write
bands alternate with the chalcedony,
they are impenetrable by the coioring
and appear clearer and brighter. Black
onyx has now almost entirely super
seeded JET.
The yellow variety is made by first
putting the stones in a honey solution,
then in q solution of chromatic OF lead
for several days. Digestion for a few
weeks in hydrochleric acid, kept at a
moderate heat, gives a beautiful clear
yellow color to the streaks that were
before q dirty brown. This is also err
roneously called golden opal. Stones
of a reddish hue are greatly improved
in brilliancy and color by first thor
oughly drying them for weeks in ovens,
then dipping them in sulphuric acid,
heating to full red heat, and after
wards slowly cooling them. The
changes that take place in both these
processes are upon the oxide OF iron
which is the coloring matter.
CHANGES WROUGHT BY MODERN
CHEMISTRY.
Modern chemistry has wrought great
changes in agate coloring, as in other
arts. a secret process having been dis
covered by which chalcedony of any
single color can be made to assume
any two or more colors, so that an
onyx of any shape or variety of cOlors
can be made. If a Sunken center of
made so that the figure when cut out
remains in a hollow, forming a chamea
lntaglio. In this manner the fine cut
ting of the cameo is protected. A white
figure may be made in q black stone, a
red figure in a brown stone, or a white
one in a red stone. BY this process the
entire stone is first changed to the color
desired for the outer layer, then a cav
lty is cut in the top and a solution put
nh lfar-c 10 ,-a.J
color 1t is this discovery that has
made a formerly valuable onyx worth
now only a nominal sum.
Agates are thus made no assume the
onyx character, which is desired by the
lapidary for the production of canoes
and intaglios in imitation of the an
tique sculptured gems. In canoes the
figures are in relief and of a different
color from the ground. Intaglios are
usually all of one color In Persia in
scriDtions or devices are written on
beads of carnelian and other forms of
agate with carbonate of soda, and other
chemicals; they are then burnt and the
inscription appears white in contrast
to the other color.
The principal supply of agates for the
last hundred years has come from Bra
zil and other South American eoun-
tries, where it is mostly found by Ger
mans who leave Oldenburg for that
purpose, and who persevere until they
ind It, Thence it is sent to Germany
Tor cutting, chiefly to Oberstein and
ldar. Every fortnight from five to ten
tons OF the rough material is sold in
idar at public auction, usually in as
sorted LOIS of 100 or 200 pounds. The
industry yields to the district an an
ntnal net profit of half a million dollars:
and good agate workmen are among
the best paid laborers in Germany,
earning from $3.50 to 81 per day.