DIAMOND

The next day, all that remained of both her and her opal was a pile of ashes. The gem could have been any gem, but the fact that Scott made it an opal, even though he never alluded to it as being unlucky, seems to have led to that superstition. As a result, the Empress Eugenie, wife of Napoleon III, refused to wear opals, as did many other women. Queen Victoria, on the other hand, was so fond of opals that she gave them to her daughters as wedding gifts.

The bad-luck association may also be due to the fact that opal crack for no reason and are so fragile that they are difficult to mount or set. At any rate, if you are superstitious and like opals, have someone give you an opal. Giving an opal as a gift is supposed t: remove any aura of bad luck.

Australia, with the best precious opal, is the major source. Other opals come from Mexico, Honduras, Nevada in the United Stated and a few other countries. There are several different kinds of opals. Black opals have color flashes against a black, gray, or blue-gray background. They are found only in Australia and are rare, despite the new find in 1978, and expensive.

White opals, described above, come from several places.Fire opals are found only in Mexico and are called that because they are red, reddish orange, or orange-yellow. "Fire" is actually a misnomer in the sense that fire opals may or may not have the play of lights associated with that term-and usually do not.

Common opals include water opals, which are transparent, although they have the familiar play of fire or opalescence of opals. y opals are translucent to transparent with a white body color. common opal has a good enough color and fire, it may be faceted.

Opal Substitutes. Because of the thinness of veins of opal, slabs too thin to be made into cabochons may be used for doublets and triplets. Sometimes, white opal is cemented to the backing material with black glue, making it look like a black opal. Although opals-with the exception of the Australian black opal-tend to craze, that ,alit into myriad cracks for no reason, doublets and triplets do not craze, perhaps because of the cement.