The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-07-06
The Blood Red Ruby Jewel
 Of July

Gems ever enchant us." In the gorgeousness of their beauty and bril- liancy we bow down to them. We are especially interested in the jewel of the month of our birth, our birth stone, as it is called, which is known to bring good luck. The red ruby is the jewel of July and Georgia Leffinwell, in Fashionable Dress, tells us unchant- ingIy of this stone and the garnet
 The ruby, the deep glow of its crim- son splendor fraught with all the age old magic mystery of distant India, lends milady it's beauty this season for her adornment. From Mandalay, the land of Kipling's flaming dawn like thunder, and from Ratnapura, from Madras and from Mysore these Haunt ing outlaws of the gem kingdom" bring their vivid glory for the fashion ing of the seasons most sumptuously sple-i1id jewelry offerings, in myriad very new and fascinating settings.
 The ruby, from the Latin "ruber," meaning red, incarnates in its vey name the warm carmine of it's color. Red as the wine of the east poured from it's golden chalice by the ruby-ringed hand of Oriental princes; red as the warm lips of beauty; red as the ife-blood which has drenched almost every fa- nous ruby of history-for the ruby, like the diamond, is a stone which has brought in its wake endless tales of death and disaster, of plunder and pill lage of dissertation and betrayal.
 Most valued of all are the deep, dark Iy clear stones known as pigeons blood rubies, but the native of India or Cey- lon shrugs his shoulders and narrows his eyes ever so slightly with the inn passive fatalism of the East as he hears this name for them. Pigeons blood"- yes, he agrees, it is better to call them that, perhaps, but he can tell you an old legend, story of the dim past when ''once upon time" there was n beau- tiful temple in Burma, which con tained in it's inmost sanctum a bejew- eled statue to the greatest of gods, a statue set with radiant stones, brilliant in undimmed crystal whiteness-dia- monds, they are called now.
 Among the most faithful of worship pers was a beautiful maiden with hair of black-burnished as ravens wing and skin as soft as a lotus petal, the daughter of a powerful native house. Each day she paid homage, and the god, attracted by her constaney, came in time to love her for her beauty and revealed himself to her; and in his love she was happy beyond the com mon lot of mortals. But, alas a day came when her parents phghted her troth to wealthy suitor from an- other part of the island, and at last he appeared to claim her as his bride.
 The maiden fled for refuge to the temple of her divine lover, and when they would have pursued her, falling breathless at the feet of her god, she stabbed herself rather than to belong, in life, to another. As she did, her blood drenched the jewels of the statue, and ill vain thereafter the priests of the temple tried to wash away the stain As they washed redder grew the gems. for each crimson drop was dear to the heart of the sorrowing god. At length, the priests, mystified, built a great fire and threw the gems into it to purify them, but when the fire died away, the stones still retained their redness. And to this day all rubies are stained with the blood of the maid of Burma, and retain their color even when heated to q high temperature. ''The ruby is often tried in Ghada-fire's fiercest glow; the fire abates, but the ruby still remains ruby quoth Maquamat of Hariri.
 Real pigeons blood rubies are the most rare of all precious stones. Their value is so high that three-carat ruby ofthe proper color and free from flaws is | worth several times as much as dia- mond of the same size. Like the dia- mend, the ruby has long lineage as 1, royal jewel of the native princes of India. Jeasously they guarded the secret of the rubies' source through the centuries, and the ruby mines in upper Burma, where the most exqui- site and richly colored stones have al- ways been obtained, were held so close ly yelled with Oriental mystery. so in violate against the invasion of any western intruder. that it was not until | the annexation of Burma by Great Britain less than half a century ago that the world at large had any ex- tensive authentic information as to the origin and occurrence of the beautiful crimson gem.
 To native potentate of India. the king of Bishenpur, belong, even today, two of the largest and most highly rrized pigeons blood rubies known to the jewel connoisseurs of the world.