Ruby. A precious stone of a carmine-red color, sometimes verging to violet, or intermediate between carmine and hyacinth red. It is a crystallized variety of corundum. The ruby from Siam is of a dark color and is called ox-blood ruby. It has about the same value as the diamond. The ruby from Burmah, called the pigeon-blood ruby, is of a lighter color and several times more valuable than the ox-blood ruby.

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“God often bestows temporal prosperities on the wicked, to show how lightly he esteems what the world is so dazzled with; but crosses he reserves for his own, whom he would humble under his Almighty hand, and make them the objects of his delight.”
–Fenelon