Antique jewelry glossary

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Fire

The brilliant display of flashes of prismatic hues in certain gemstones due to a high dispersive power and a high refractive index, emphasized by faceting. The fire in a correctly faceted diamond is greater than in other natural colourless gemstone (next is zircon), owing to the high dispersive power combined with its high refractive index; but it is surpassed by synthetic rutile and synthetic strontium titanate and also by such coloured stones as demantoid (green garnet), and sphene.

Such stones as the emerald, ruby, and sapphire, although they may have brilliance, do not have fire.

From: An Illustrated Dictionary of Jewelry, autor: Harold Newman, publishers: Thames and Hudson