woman he
loved. But the cold-hearted chemist declares that an acid which could
dissolve a pearl would also dissolve the person who swallowed it, so
those two legends must vanish with many others that have shrivelled up
under the searching gaze of science.

There is another interesting story about the destruction of a pearl.
During the reign of Elizabeth, a haughty Spanish ambassador was
boasting at the Court of England of the great riches of his king. Sir
Thomas Gresham, wishing to get even with the bragging Castilian,
replied that some of Elizabeth's subjects would spend as much at one
meal as Philip's whole kingdom could produce in a day! To prove this
statement, Sir Thomas invited the Spaniard to dine with him, and
having ground up a costly Eastern pearl the Englishman coolly
swallowed it.

Going back to the dimness of early times, we find that many of the
ancients preferred green gems to all other stones. The emerald was
thought to have many virtues. It kept evil spirits at a distance, it
restored failing sight, it could unearth mysteries, and when it turned
yellow its owner knew to a certainty that the woman he loved was false
to him.

The ruby flashes through all Oriental romances. This stone banished
sadness and sin. A serpent with a ruby in its mouth was considered an
appropriate betrothal ring.

The most interesting ruby of history is set in the royal diadem of
England. It is called the Black Prince's ruby. In the days when the
Moors ruled Granada, when both the men and the women of that race
sparkled with gems, and even the ivory covers of their books were
sometimes set with precious stones, the Spanish king, Don Pedro the
Cruel, obtained this stone from a Moorish prince whom he had caused to
be murdered.

It was given by Don Pedro to the Black Prince, and half a century
later it glowed on the helmet of that most picturesque of England's
kings, Henry V, at the battle of Agincourt.

The Scotchman, Sir James Melville, saw this jewel during his famous
visit to the Court of Elizabeth, when the Queen showed him some of the
treasures in her cabinet, the most valued of these being the portrait
of Leicester.

"She showed me a fair ruby like a great racket ball," he says. "I
desired she would send to my queen either this or the Earl of
Leicester's picture." But Elizabeth cherished both the ruby and the
portrait, so she sent Marie Stuart a diamond instead.

Poets have lavished their fancies upon the origin