Sources and Superstition

Opals of a quality fit for use as ornamental stones are found in many lands. Mines in Czernowitza, in northern Hungary, long produced the most highly valued gem opals obtainable. These opals are often known as "Oriental opals," because they first appeared in Holland through Greek and Turkish traders. Despite the trade practice of applying the term "Oriental" to this type of opals, none is found in the Orient. The Hungarian opals were undoubtedly those first known to the Romans. The claim is made that Hungarian opals are less likely to deteriorate than any other variety. Gem opals are also found in Australia, Mexico, and Honduras. Although opals are produced to a commercial extent in several Mexican states, they are most systematically mined in Queretaro, where the opal occurs in long veins in a porphyritic trachyte. This opal mining has created a somewhat primitive cutting and polishing industry in the city of Queretaro. The exporting of Honduras opals—all uncut—is not extensive. In the United States the occurrence of gem opal has been observed in the John Davies River, Oregon, and near Whelan, between the Coeur d'Alene and Nez Perces Indian reservations, almost on the Idaho line, State of Washington. The most prolific source of opals in recent years has been the Australia mines, the most prominent being White Cliffs, New South Wales. Extensive mining operations are carried on there, the matrix of the opal being a cretaceous sandstone, which has been permeated by hot volcanic waters. The output of this region has already been represented by millions of dollars. Opals have been obtained in commercial quantities at localities on the Barcoo River and Bulla Creek, Queensland, and are occasionally found in West Australia.

The admiration of the ancients for the opal is expressed by Onomacritus, writing five hundred years B.C., who remarks: "The delicate colour and tenderness of the opal remind me of a loving and beautiful child." Pliny, whose voluminous books covered so wide a range, and who evidently believed himself qualified to write about anything, wrote of the opal: "It is made up of the glories of the most precious gems, and to describe it is a matter of inexpressible difficulty." The ancients esteemed the opal highly, and attributed to it an influence for every possible good; this belief outlasted the Middle Ages, and in the early part of the seventeenth century the opal is recorded as being as highly valued as ever. Then arose a superstition that the fiery stone was unlucky, and this became prevalent everywhere. The cause of this has been attributed to Walter Scott's novel Anne of Geierstein. A genuine reason why opal may have come to be regarded as unlucky by its possessors is its mutability. The changes which may occur in the opal are not only numerous but freakish and uncanny. Brilliant opals have lost their fires and lustre forever, while others have lost and recovered them. In other cases dull specimens have suddenly developed brilliancy. Mediocre specimens will sometimes, when moistened with oil or water, exhibit a fine colour play, which will vanish when the stones dry, and this peculiarity has been utilised for profit by dishonest dealers. A stone thus acquired would be unlucky for the purchaser.

Credit for the reinstatement of the opal in public favour is believed by the author to be due in great part to the late Queen Victoria, who, in many ways, demonstrated her royal favour for the stone of many fires and colours, and there is no doubt that the Queen's motive was to benefit her colonial subjects in Australia, where opals had been discovered.

Queen Victoria gave to each of her daughters, at their marriage, opals, and this and other acts which signified her admiration for the stone and her disdain for the superstition through which its reputation had fallen into evil days soon raised opals high in the realm of precious stones; the result being that Australian exports of opal were handsomely increased by the demand for, and shipment of, the stone thus royally reinstated to its ancient high estate of popular favour.

It is but a just appreciation of the average high intelligence of the gem-purchasing American public, to state that opals have always been appreciated in the United States for their merits, and that here the dread tabu of "unlucky" has had the least effect. And it may be said that it is on their merits they are judged, for the demand has latterly distinctly decreased for the inferior grades of opals that formerly sold readily, while choice gems are sought for, and American purchasers prove themselves well posted and very discriminating.