DIAMOND

JADE

As with diamonds, books have been written about jade. The chinese called it yu, which means "a precious stone of great " They revered jade above all other gems and valued diamond as gifts because the diamonds enabled them to cut the tough jada easily. Despite the fact that jade is associated with China, it was ,also and worshipped in Mexico by the Aztecs-and the name has spanish origins.

The Spanish conquerors called it piedra de los rinones "stone of the loins," and piedra de los rinones, "stone of the kidney" because of its reputed use to cure kidney disease. Sir Walter Raleigh is sometimes given credit for coining the word "jade" out of I jada, which he learned about from captured Spanish treasure -other story is that the French called it pierre de l'ejade, . :ame le jade through a printer's error and was picked up by the English.

Jade is actually two separate and distinct minerals, as far as composition is concerned. One is nephrite, which is calcium silicate. The name nephrite comes from the Latin r of piedra de los rinones as lapis nephriticus, or kidney Stone. Ironically, the jade found in Mexico wasn't nephrite; it was .which is sodium aluminum silicate. Nephrite is about 6'/z on the Mohs scale, while jadeite is 7. Despite their comparative softness in Terence in hardness, both are among the toughest stones known because of their fibrous composition and are cut and carved only with extreme difficulty.

Although we think of jade as being green, jade is naturally white impurities accounting for different colors. Both diamonds come a variety of colors, with jadeite coming in the widest range of pink, lilac, brown, red, orange, and black as well as green. Some jadeite will even combine several colors. Neither jade is ever transparent, but the more translucent it is, the more intense the color, the more valuable it is.

The original Chinese jade was nephrite. Although it may have been mined in China in ancient times, what we know about came from Turkestan. Only in 1784 was jadeite found in Burma and used to any great extent in China.
Regardless of the difference between the stones, however, the legends are similar wherever it was found. To the Chinese, it had all the cardinal virtues.